.eraote wompany 
ther Sketches. 

TARR JORDAN 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Chap.\_^L_. -Copyright No. 

Shelt^sL^D-t 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 






THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE 

COMPANY, AND OTHER 

SKETCHES 



BY 

DAVID STARR JORDAK 

PRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 




SAN FRANCISCO 
THE WHITAKER <fe RAY COMPANY 

INCORPORATED) 
1896 




V 






COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
BY 

David Starr Jordan 



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JESSIE KNIGHT JORDAN. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 

This volume is made up of separate sketches, historical or 
allegorical, having in some degree a bond of union in the 
idea of " the higher sacrifice." 

I am under obligations to Professor William R. Dudley 
for the use of a photograph of a record of Father Serra. This 
was secured through the kindness of the late Father Casa- 
nova, of Monterey. 

Palo Alto, Cal., June 1, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Story of the Innumerable Company ... 11 

The Story op the Passion 41 

The California op the Padre 87 

The Conquest op Jupiter Pen 135 

The Last op the Puritans 175 

A Knight op the Order of Poets 205 

Nature-Study and Moral Culture .... 245 

The Higher Sacrifice . 267 

The Bubbles of Saki 291 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Peter Rendl as Saint John 59 

Johann Zwink as Judas 67 

Rosa Lang as Mary 71 

"Ecce Homo!" 79 

A Record of Junipero Serra 101 

Mission of Sah Antonio de Padua 115 

Mission of San Antonio de Padua — Interior of Chapel . . 121 

Mission of San Antonio de Padua— Side of Chapel, with the Old 

Pear-trees 133 

The Great Saint Bernard 139 

Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard 143 

Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard — in Winter .... 147 

Jupitere (Great Saint Bernard Dog) 151 

Monks of the Great Saint Bernard 155 

Saint Bernard and the Demon 169 

John Brown 187 

The John Brown Homestead, North Elba, N. Y 199 

John Brown's Grave 203 

Ulrich Von Hutten 217 

Ulrich Zwingli 239 



Men told me, Lord, it was a vale of tears 
Where Thou hast placed me, wickedness and woe 
My twain companions whereso I might go ; 
That I through ten and threescore weary years 
Should stumble on beset by pains and fears, 
Fierce conflict round me, passions hot within, 
Enjoyment brief and fatal but in sin. 
When all was ended then should I demand 
Full compensation from thine austere hand ; 
For, His thy pleasure, all temptation past, 
To be not just but generous at last. 

Lord, here am I, my threescore years and ten 

All counted to the full; 1 've fought thy fight, 

Crossed thy dark valleys, scaled thy rocks' harsh height, 

Borne all the burdens Thou dost lay on men 

With hand unsparing threescore years and ten. 

Before Thee now I make my claim, O Lord, — 

What shall I pray Thee as a meet reward? 

I ask for nothing. Let the balance fall ! 

All that I am or know or may confess 

But swells the weight of mine indebtedness ; 

Burdens and sorroivs stand transfigured all; 

Thy hand's rude buffet turns to a caress, 

For Love, with all the rest, Thou gavest me here, 

And Love is Heaven's very atmosphere. 

Lo, I have dwelt with Thee, Lord. Let me die. 

I could no more through all eternity. 



THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE 
COMPANY. 



THE STORY OF THE INNUMERABLE 
COMPANY. 

THERE was once a great mountain which rose 
from the shore of the sea, and on its flanks it 
bore a mighty forest. Beyond the crest of the 
mountain were ridges and valleys, peaks and 
chasms, springs and torrents. Farther on lay 
a sandy desert, which stretched its monotonous 
breadth to the shore of a wide, swift river. What 
lay beyond the river no one knew, because its 
shores were always hid in azure mist. 

Year by year there came up from the shore of 
the sea an Innumerable Company. Each one must 
cross the mountain and the forest, faring onward 
toward the desert and the river. And this was one 
condition of the journey — that whosoever came to 
the river must breast its waters alone. Why this 
was so, no one could tell; nor did any one know 
aught of the land beyond. For of the multitude 
who had crossed the river not one had ever re- 
turned. 

As time went on there came to be paths through 

13 



14 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

the forest. Those who went first left traces to serve 
as guides for those coming after. Some put marks 
on the trees; some built little cairns of stones to 
show the way they had taken in going around great 
rocks. Those who followed found these marks and 
added to them. And many of the travelers left 
little charts which showed where the cliffs and 
chasms were and by what means one could reach 
the hidden springs. So in time it came to pass 
that there was scarcely a tree on the mountain 
which bore not some traveler's mark; there was 
scarcely a rock that had not a cairn of stones 
upon it. 

In early times there was One who came up from 
the sea and made the journey over the mountain 
and across the desert by a way so fair that the 
memory of it became a part of the story of the 
forest. Men spoke to each other of his way, and 
many wished to find it out, that haply they might 
walk therein. He, too, had left a Chart, which those 
who followed him had carefully kept, and from 
which they had drawn help in many times of need. 

The way he went was not the shortest way, nor 
was it the easiest. The ways that are short and 
easy lead not over the mountain. But his was the 
most repaying way. It led by the noblest trees, the 



THE MOST REPAYING WAY. 15 

fairest outlooks, the sweetest springs, the greenest 
pastures, and the shadow of great rocks in the 
desert. And the chart of his way which he left 
was very simple and very plain — easy to under- 
stand. Even a child might use it. And, indeed, 
there were many children who did so. 

On this chart were the chief landmarks of the 
region — the mountain with its forest, the desert 
with its green oases, the paths to the hidden springs. 
But there were not many details. The old cairns 
were not marked upon it, and when two paths led 
alike over the mountain, there was no sign to show 
that one was to be taken rather than the other. 
Not much was said as to what food one should 
take, or what raiment one should wear, or by what 
means one should defend himself. But there were 
many simple directions as to how one should act 
on the road, and by what signs he should know 
the right path. One ought to look upward, and 
not downward ; to look forward, and not backward ; 
to be always ready to give a helping hand to his 
neighbor: and whomsoever one meets is one's 
neighbor, he said. 

As to the desert, one need not dread it; nor 
should one fear the river, for the lands beyond it 
were sweet and fair. Moreover, one should learn 



16 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

to know the forest, that he might choose his course 
wisely. And this knowledge each one should seek 
for himself. For, as he said, " If the blind lead the 
blind, both shall fall into the ditch." 

There were many who followed his way and gave 
heed to his precepts. The path seemed dangerous 
at times, especially at the outset; for it lay along 
dizzy heights, through tangled underwood, and 
across swollen torrents. But after a while all these 
were left behind. The way passed on between cleft 
rocks, into green pastures, and by still waters; and 
in the desert were sweet springs which gave forth 
abundantly. 

But some who tried to follow him said that his 
Chart was not explicit enough. Every step in the 
journey, they contended, should be laid out exactly; 
for to travel safely one should never be left in doubt. 

Now, it chanced that on the slope of the mountain 
there was a huge granite rock, which stood in the 
midst of the way. Some of the travelers passed to 
the right of it, while others turned to the left. 
Strangely enough, the Chart said nothing concern- 
ing this rock. No hint was given as to how one 
should pass by it. 

When they came to the rock, many of the trav- 
elers took counsel one of another, and at last a great 



THE ONE TRUE WAY TO THE BIGHT. 17 

multitude was gathered there. "Which way had he 
takeu? For in the path he took they must surely 
go. Many scanned the rock on every side, to find 
if haply he had left some secret mark upon it. But 
they found none ; or, rather, no one could convince 
the others that the hidden marks he found were 
intended for their guidance. 

At nightfall, after much discussion, the old men 
in the council gave their decision. The safe way 
led to the right. So he who kept the Chart marked 
upon it the place of the rock, and he wrote upon 
the Chart that the one true path leads to the right. 
Henceforth each man should know the way he 
must go. 

Moreover, those who bore the records showed that 
this decision was justified. They wrote upon the 
Chart a long argument, chain upon chain and rea- 
son upon reason, to prove that from the beginning 
it was decreed that by this rock should the destiny 
of man be tested. 

But in spite of argument, there were still some 
who chose the left-hand path because they verily 
believed that this was the only right way. They, 
too, justified their course by arguments, line upon 
line and precept upon precept. And each band 
tried to make its following as large as it could. 



18 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

Some men stood all day by the side of the rock, 
urging people to come with them to the right or to 
the left. For, strangely enough, although each man 
had his own journey to make, and must cross the 
river at last alone, he was eager that all others 
should go along with him. 

And as each band grew larger, its members took 
pride in the growth of its numbers. In the larger 
bands, trumpets were blown, harps were sounded, 
and banners were waved in the wind. Those who 
walked shoulder to shoulder under waving flags to 
the sound of trumpets felt secure and confident, 
while those who journeyed alone seemed always to 
walk with fear and trembling. It was said in the 
old Chart that where two or three were gathered 
together on the way, strength and courage would 
be given them. But men could not believe this, 
and few had the heart to test whether it were true 
or no. 

So the bands went on to the right or to the left, 
each in its chosen path. But after they had passed 
the first great rock, they came to other rocks and 
trees and places of doubt. Other councils were 
held, and at each step there were some who would 
not abide by the decision of the elders. So these 
from time to time went their own ways. And they 



HOW WISDOM BROUGHT UNITY. 19 

made new inscriptions on the Chart, and erased the 
old ones, each according to his own ideas. And 
there was much pushing and jostling when the 
bands separated themselves one from another. 

At last one of the oldest travelers in the largest 
band — a man with a long white beard, and wise 
with the experience of years — arose and said that 
not in anger, nor in strife, should they journey on. 
Discord and contention arise from difference of 
opinion. Let all men but think alike, and they will 
walk in peace and harmony. Let each band choose 
a leader. Let him carry the Chart, and let him 
night and day pore over its precepts. No one else 
need distress himself. One had only to keep step 
on the road, and to follow whithersoever the leader 
might direct. 

So the people chose a leader — a man grave and 
serious, wise in the lore of the forest and the desert. 
He noted on the Chart each rock and tree, drawing 
in sharp outlines every detail in the only safe path. 
Moreover, all deviating trails he marked with the 
symbol of danger. 

And it came to pass that day by day other bands 
followed, and to them the Chart was given as he 
had left it. And these bands, too, chose leaders, 
whose part it was to interpret the Chart. But each 



20 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

one of these added to the Chart some better way of 
his own, some short cut he had found, or some new 
trail not marked with the proper sign of warning. 

And with all these changes and additions, as time 
went on, the true way became very hard to find. 
At one point, so the story is told, there were twenty- 
nine distinct paths, leading in as many directions ; 
each of these, if the Chart be true, came to its 
end in some frightful chasm. "With these there 
was a single narrow trail that led to safety ; but no 
two leaders could agree as to which was the right 
trail. One thing only was certain: the true way 
was very hard to find, and no traveler might dis- 
cover it unaided. 

And some declared that the Chart was compli- 
cated beyond all need. There was one who said, 
"The multiplication of non-essentials has become 
the bane of the forest." Even a little meadow 
which he had found, and which he called the 
"Saints' Rest," was so entangled in paths and 
counterpaths that once out of sight of it one could 
never find it again. 

All this time there were many bands that wan- 
dered about in circles, finding everywhere cairns of 
stones, but no way of escape. Still others remained 
day after day in the shadow of great rocks, disput- 



HOW THE GREAT BANDS MOVED SLOWLY. 21 

ing and doubting as to how they should pass by 
them. There were arguments and precedents 
enough for any course; but arguments and prece- 
dents made no man sure. 

And it came to pass that most travelers followed 
the band they found nearest. At last, to join some 
band became their only care. And they looked 
with pity and distrust upon those who traveled 
alone. 

But the bands all made their way very slowly. 
No matter how wise the leader, not all were ready 
to move at once, and not all could keep step to the 
sound of even the slowest trumpet. There was 
often much ado at nightfall over the pitching of 
the tents, and many were crowded out into the 
forest. At times also, in the presence of danger, 
fear spread through the band, and many of 
the weaker ones were trampled on and sorely 
hurt. 

Then, too, as they passed through the rocky de- 
files, some of them lost sight of the banners, and 
then the others would wait for them, or perchance 
leave them behind, to struggle on as best they 
might without chart or guide. 

And there were those who spoke in this wise: 
"Many paths lead over the mountain, and sooner 



22 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

or later all come to the desert and the river. It 
does not matter where we walk; the question is, 
How? We cannot know step by step the way he 
went. Let us walk by faith, as he walked. If our 
spirit is like his, we shall not lack for guidance 
when we come to the crossing of the ways." And 
so they fared on. But many doubted their own 
promptings. "Tell me, am I right?" each one 
asked of his neighbor; and his neighbor asked it 
again of him. And those who were in doubt fol- 
lowed those who were sure. 

So it came to pass that these who walked by 
faith likewise gathered themselves into great com- 
panies, and each company followed some leader. 
Some of these leaders had the gift of woodcraft, 
and saw clearly into the very nature of things. 
But some were only headstrong, and these proved 
to be but blind leaders of the blind. 

Then one said, " We must not be filled with our 
own conceit, but must humbly imitate him. We 
must try to work as he worked ; to rest as he rested ; 
to sleep as he slept. The deeds we do should be 
those he did, and those only. For on his Chart he 
has told us, not the way he went past rocks and 
trees, but the actions with which his days were 
filled." Then those who tried to do as he had done, 



HOW EACH DAY'S ACTIONS WERE FIXED. 23 

moved by his motives and acting through his deeds, 
found the way wonderfully easy. The days and the 
hours seemed all too short for the joy with which 
they were filled. 

But, again, there were many who said that his 
directions were not explicit enough. The Chart 
said so little. " That we may make no mistake/' 
they said, " we must gather ourselves in bands and 
choose leaders. We cannot act as he acted unless 
there is some one to show us how." 

Thus it came to pass that leaders were chosen 
who could do everything that he had done, in all 
respects, according to his method. And they added 
to the Chart the record of their own practices — not 
only that " He did thus and so," but also, " Thus 
and so he did not do." " Thus and thus did he eat 
bread, and thus only. Thus and thus did he loose 
his sandals. In this way only gave he bread and 
wine. Here on the way he fasted ; there he feasted. 
At this turn of the road he looked upward thus, 
shading his eyes with his hand. Here he anointed 
his feet ; there his face wore a sad smile. Such was 
the cut of his coat; of this wood was his staff; of 
such a number of words his prayer." And many 
were comforted in the thought that for every 
turn in the road there was some definite thing 



24 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

which he had done, and which they, too, might 
perform. 

Thus the duties of every moment were fixed. 
But as the days went on these duties grew more 
and more difficult. No one had time to look at the 
rocks or trees ; no one could cast his eyes over a 
noble prospect; no one could stop to rest by the 
sweet fountains or in the refreshing shadows. One 
could hardly give a moment to such things, lest he 
should overlook some needful service. 

Then many lost heart, and said that surely he 
cared not for times and observances, else he would 
have said more about them. When he made the 
journey, it was his chief reproach that he heeded 
not these things. With him, ceremony or observ- 
ance rose directly out of the need for it, each one as 
the need was felt. To imitate him is to feel as he 
felt. With him feelings gave rise to word and 
action. " So will it be with us. It is not for us to 
imitate him in the fashion of his coat or the cut of 
his beard. He went over the road giving help and 
comfort, as the sun gives light or the flowers shed 
fragrance, all unconscious of the good he did." And 
in this wise did many imitate him. They turned 
aside the boughs of the trees, that the sunshine of 
heaven might fall upon their neighbors. And 



THE BIGHT WAY BY BIGHT FEELINGS. 25 

behold, the same sunshine fell upon them also. 
They removed the stones from the road, that others 
might not stumble over them. And others removed 
the stones from their way also. 

But many were still in doubt and hesitation. The 
record, they said, was not explicit enough. They 
counseled together, and gathered in bands, and chose 
leaders who should tell them how to feel. And the 
leaders gave close heed to all his feelings and to the 
times and seasons proper to each. Here he was 
joyous, and at a signal all the band broke into 
merry laughter. Here he was stern, and the mul- 
titude set its teeth. There he wept, and tears fell 
like rain from innumerable eyes. 

As time went on, repeated action made action 
easy. The springs of feeling were readily troubled. 
Still each one felt, or tried to feel, all that he should 
have felt. No one dared admit to his fellows that 
his tears were a sham, his joy a pretense, his sad- 
ness a lie. But often, in the bottom of their hearts, 
men would confess with real tears that they had 
no genuine feeling there. 

Then the people asked for leaders who could bring 
out real feelings. And there arose leaders, who, by 
terrible words, could fill the hearts with fear; by 
burning words, could stir the embers of zeal; by the 



26 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY 

intensity of their own passions, could fill the throng 
with pity, with sorrow, or with indignation. And 
the multitude hung on their lips ; for they sought 
for feelings real and not simulated. 

But here again division arose; for not all were 
touched alike by those who had power over the 
hearts of men. Some followed the leader who 
moved them to tears ; others chose him who filled 
them with fear and trembling. Still others loved 
to linger in the dark shadow of remorse. Some 
said that right emotions were roused by loud and 
ringing tones. Some said that the tones should be 
sad and sweet. 

Then there were some who said that feelings such 
as all these were idle and common. When he trod 
the way of old, it was with radiant eyes and with 
uplifted heart. He saw through the veil of clouds to 
the glory which lay beyond. We follow him best 
when we too are uplifted. Now and then on the 
way come to us moments of exultation, when we 
tread in his very footsteps. These are the precious 
moments; then our way is his way. In the rosy 
mists of morning, we may behold the glory which 
encompassed him. In moments of silent commun- 
ion in the forest, we may feel his peace steal over us. 
In the gentle rain that falls upon the just and the 



THE SHADOW OF THE UPRAISED STAFF. 27 

unjust, we may know the soft pity of his tears. 
When the sun declines, its last rays touch with gold 
the far-off mountain tops beyond the great river. 

And the uplifting of great moments, filling the 
souls of men with peace that passeth understanding, 
came to many. As they went their way, this peace 
fell upon their neighbors also. And no man did 
aught to make them afraid. And others sought 
to go with these, and thus they became a great 
band. 

So they chose as their leaders those whose visions 
were brightest. And they made for themselves a 
banner like the white mist flung out from the 
mountain-tops at the rising of the sun. They spoke 
much to each other concerning the white banner 
and the peace which filled their souls. 

But as they journeyed along, the dust of the way 
dimmed the banner, and the bright visions one by 
one faded away. At last they came no more. 

Then the people murmured and called upon the 
leaders to grant them some brighter vision, some- 
thing that all could see and feel at once — some 
sign by which they might know that they were still 
in his way. " Cause that a path be opened through 
the thicket," they said, " and let a white dove come 
forth to lead us on ; or, let the mists beyond the 



28 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

river part for a moment, that we may behold the 
far country beyond." 

And one of the leaders standing at the head of 
the column, clothed in the morning light as with a 
garment, raised his staff high in the air. The sun's 
rays fell upon it, touching the morning mists with 
gold, and threw across them the long shadow of the 
upraised staff. The shadow fell far out across the 
plains, and about it was a halo of bright light. And 
all the band looked joyfully at the vision. Adown 
the slope of the mountain and out into the plain 
they followed the way of the shadow. And all the 
time the white banner waved at the head of the 
column. The people said little to one another, but 
that little was a word of praise and rejoicing. 

But it came to pass, as the day wore on, that the 
sun rose in the sky, and drew the mists up from the 
valley. "With them vanished the long shadow of 
the staff, and in its place appeared the sandy plain. 
The feet of the people were sore with the rocks and 
stones. The air was thick with dust. Their hearts 
were uplifted no longer. Instead they were filled 
with doubt and distress. 

And the people repined and murmured against 
their leader. But the leader said that all was well ; 
even in the way he went there had been stones and 



TO SEE THINGS AS THEY REALLY ABE. 29 

hindrances. More than once had he carried a heavy- 
burden along a dusty road. But he never doubted 
nor complained, and so the radiance round about 
him never faded away. 

But all the more the people clamored for a sign. 
Let the bright vision of the morning appear to us 
again. At length, worn with much entreaty, the 
leader raised once more his staff above his head. 
The sun at noon fell upon it. But as the people 
gazed they saw no long line of radiance stretching 
out across the plains amid a halo of shining mist. 
The shadow of the staff was a little shapeless mark 
upon the sand at their very feet. 

Then the leader cast his staff away and went by 
himself alone, sad and sorrowful. That night, as he 
lay by the roadside, he looked upward to the clear, 
calm, honest stars. They seemed to say to him, 
" See all things as they really are. This was his 
way. ' In spirit and in truth ' means in the light 
of no illusion. Not all the visions of mist or of 
sunshine can make the journey other than it is." 

So he came to look closely at all things on the 
road. Day by day he read the lessons of the desert 
and the mountain. He learned to know directions 
by the growth of the trees. By the perfume of the 
lilies, he sought out the hidden springs. By the red 



30 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

clouds at evening, he knew that the sky would be 
fair. By the red light in the morning, he was 
warned of the coming storm. And there were 
many who followed him and his way, though he 
did not will it so. 

And he taught his companions, saying : " We 
must seek his way in the nature of the things that 
abide. To learn this nature of things is the begin- 
ning of wisdom. For day unto day uttereth speech, 
and night unto night showeth knowledge. The way 
of nature is solid, substantial, vast, and unchang- 
ing. He who walks in it stands secure, as in the 
shadow of a high tower or as if encompassed by a 
mighty fortress. The wisdom of the forest shall be 
granted to him who seeks for it with calm heart and 
quiet eye." 

But among his followers there were many who 
were eager and would hasten on, and although they 
spoke much of the Nature of Things and of the Law 
of the Forest, they were contented with speaking. 
" The road is long," they said to themselves, " and 
the hours are fleeting." They had no time to con- 
template the glory of the heavens. The beauty of 
the lilies fell on unobservant eyes. For all these 
things they trusted to the report of others. The 
words passed from mouth to mouth, losing ever a 



IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH. 31 

little of their truth. And in this wise the voice of 
wisdom was turned to the language of folly. For 
the nature of things is truth. But no man can find 
truth except he seek it for himself. And so they 
fared on, each well or ill, according to the truth to 
which his way bore witness. 

Meanwhile those who bore the white banner 
remained long in council. At last one remembered 
that it was written, " Faith without works is dead, 
being alone." And it was written again, " Those 
who follow me in spirit must follow me in truth." 
The essence of truth lies not in thought or feeling, 
but must be expressed in deeds. Right feelings 
follow right actions. Thus it was with him ; thus 
will it be with us. 

Then they went their way together, doing good 
to one another. And each called his neighbor 
" brother " ; and some bore cups of cold water, and 
some balm for healing ; some carried oil and wine 
and pots of precious ointment. To whomsoever 
they met they gave help and comfort. The hungry 
they fed. The thirsty were given drink. He who 
had fallen by the wayside was lifted up and 
strengthened, and the blessing of cleanliness was 
brought to him who lay in filth and shame. The 
blessing of him that was ready to perish came 



32 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY, 

upon them, and the heart of the widow sang for 

joy- 
But soon those who were filled with zeal for good 
works were gathered together in great bands, and 
each band wished to magnify its work. In every 
way, to all men who asked, help was given. 
They searched out the lame and the blind, and 
brought them that they might perforce be healed. 
Cup after cup of cold water was given to the little 
ones, even to those who might bring water for 
themselves. They cared for the wounded wayfarer 
long after his wounds were made whole. It was 
their joy to bathe his limbs in oil and wine, or 
to swathe them in fragrant bands. And the way- 
farer ceased to bear his own tent or to seek his 
own raiment. What others would do for him, he 
need not do for himself. And those who did not 
help themselves lost the power of self-help. And 
those who had helped others overmuch came them- 
selves to need the help of others. 

At last the number of the helpless became so great 
that there was no one to serve them. Many waited 
day after day for the aid that never came, and they 
grew so weak with waiting that they could not take 
up their burdens. The little ones were thrust aside 
by the strong, and as the band went on many of 



GLAD TIDINGS. 33 

them were forgotten and left behind. They fainted 
and fell by the healing springs, because there was 
no one to give them drink, and they could not help 
themselves. 

And the burden of the way grew very hard and 
grievous to bear. Then there were those who said 
that one cannot help another save by leading him 
to help himself. All that is given him must he 
repay. Sooner or later each must bear his own 
burden. Each must make his own way through 
the forest in such manner as he may. 

So they turned back to the old Chart. They would 
read his words again, that they might be led to 
better deeds. In these words they found help and 
cheer. These words spake they one to another. 
They came like rain to a thirsty field, or as balm 
to a wound, or as good news from a far country. 
And there was wonderful consolation in the thought 
that for every step of the way he had spoken the 
right word. 

So those who knew his words best were chosen as 
leaders, and great companies followed them. And 
as band after band passed along, his message 
sounded from one to another. His words were 
ever on their lips. Those who could run swiftly 
carried them far and wide, even into the depths of 



34 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

the forest. To those who were in sorrow they came 
as glad tidings of great joy, and beautiful upon the 
mountains seemed the feet of those who bore them. 
Wherever men were weary and heavy laden, they 
were cheered by his promise of rest. 

But there were some who turned to his message 
only to gratify sordid hopes or vain desires. He 
who was lazy sought warrant for sleep. He who 
was covetous looked for gain. He who was filled 
with anger sought promise of vengeance. There 
were many who repeated his words for the mere 
words' sake. And there were some who used them 
in disputations about the way. And the words of 
help on the Chart they turned into words of com- 
mand. Each one took these commands not to him- 
self alone, but sought to enforce them upon others. 
"For it is our duty," they said, "to see that no word 
of his shall be unheeded of any man." And many 
rose in resistance. And the conflicts on the way 
were fierce and strong; for with each different band 
there was diversity of interpretation. Thus the 
words of kindness became the voice of hate. 

And it came to pass that all along the way the 
green sward was red with the blood of wayfarers. 
Everywhere the leaves of the forest were trampled 
by struggling hosts. And " In his name" was the 



BES1ST NOT. 35 

watchword of each warring band. And each band 
called itself " his army." And whosoever bore the 
sword that was reddest, they called the " Defender 
of the Faith." They placed his name upon their 
battle-flags, and beneath it they wrote these fearful 
words, " In this sign, conquer." And each went 
forth to conquer his neighbor, and the wayfarer 
fled from the sight of their banners as from a pesti- 
lence. But " Conquer, conquer," was no word of his. 
He spoke not of victory over others; only of conquest 
of oneself. He had said, " Resist not, but overcome 
evil with good." And till all men ceased to resist 
and ceased to conquer, no one found himself in the 
right way. Then some one said : " By words alone 
can no one truly follow him. His words without 
his faith and love are like sounding brass or tin- 
kling cymbal. Out of the abundance of the heart 
the mouth speaketh. When the heart is empty the 
speech of the mouth is idle as the crackling of 
thorns beneath a pot." 

And there appeared other bands from the num- 
ber of those who had passed to the right of the first 
great rock ; and seeing the tumult and confusion of 
the others, they said to themselves: "These are 
they who followed not us. We have chosen the 
better part. Our leader bears the only perfect 



36 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

Chart. All other charts are the invention of men. 
In the right Chart there can be nothing false; in 
the others there can be nothing true. Those who 
have not the true Chart can never go right, not 
even for a moment. For even good deeds done in 
the paths of evil must partake of the nature of sin. 
Straight is the way and narrow is the gate, but 
there is no safety except ye walk therein." 

So they went on, stumbling ever along the rocky 
road, never resting, never murmuring. " For the 
way at best is a vale of tears/' said they, " and no 
one would have it otherwise. He found it thus in 
his time. He was ever a man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief. More than all others had 
he suffered. It was his glory to be despised and 
rejected of men. For the greater the abasement 
the greater the exaltation in the land beyond the 
river." So day by day they walked in the hardest 
part of the road. But they spoke often together of 
a land of pure delight, of sweet fields beyond the 
swelling floods, and of turf soft as velvet that rose 
from the river's bank. 

If perchance on the way they came to green pas- 
tures, they would hasten on, lest they should be 
tempted to rest before the day of rest was come. 
From sweet springs they turned aside, that theirs 



THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW. 37 

might be the greater satisfaction when they came 
to the sweetest springs of all. They shut their eyes 
to beauty and their ears to music, that the light 
and music of the unknown shore might burst upon 
them as a sudden revelation. They looked not at 
the stars, lest perchance these should declare a 
glory which was reserved for other days. Dreary 
and harsh was the way they trod. But in its very 
dreariness they found safety. They sought no 
pleasure, they fought no battles, they wasted no 
time. In the pushing aside of all temptation, the 
scorn of all beauty and idleness, they found de- 
light. Against the strength of granite rock they 
set the force of iron will. Withal, at the bottom 
their hearts were light with the certainty of coming 
joy. Even the multitude of conflicting paths gave 
them a peculiar satisfaction; for whatever way they 
took was always the right way. 

But there were some among them who lost all 
heart. And they threw their charts away and set 
forth in disorder through the forest and up the 
mountain. Some of them came safely to the river, 
far in advance of the bands they had left behind. 
But to most the way was strange, and harder than 
of old. And as the journey wore on they began to 
hate the forest and all its ways. 



38 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

So they fared on, together or apart, in ever-deep- 
ening shadow. They distrusted their neighbors. 
They despised the joyous bands who trooped after 
their leaders with mouthing of verses and waving 
of flags. They were stirred by the sound of no 
trumpet. They were deceived by no illusion of sun- 
shine or of mist. They said : " We know the forest ; 
no one knows it but ourselves. There is no future; 
there is no way ; there is no rest ; there is no better 
country. The azure mists are shadows only, hiding 
some dreary plain, if haply they hide anything at 
all. Evil is man; evil are all things about him. 
Love and joy, hope and faith, all these are but flick- 
ering lights that lure him to destruction. Vultures 
croak on the rocks. The fountains flow with ink. 
Danger lurks in the desert. The name of the river 
is Death." And when they came to the shore of the 
river they saw no rift in the clouds above it, for 
their eyes were filled with gloom. 

But as time passed on, the way of man grew 
brighter, whether* he would or no. No day nor 
hour was without its joy to him who opened 
his heart to receive it. And men saw that 
most of the difficulties and dangers of the way 
were those which they unwittingly had made 
for themselves or for others. Thus, as the road 



THE OLD CHART. 39 

became more secure, it no longer seemed dreary 
or lonely. 

And so it came to pass at last that men ceased to 
gather themselves in great bands. Nor did they 
longer set store on the sound of trumpets or the 
waving of flags. The men who were wisest ceased 
to be leaders of hosts. They became teachers and 
helpers instead. 

And with all this a sure way was from day to day 
not hard to find. Men fell into it naturally and 
unconsciously. And the ways which are safe are 
innumerable as the multitude of those that may 
walk therein. 

And those who had gone by diverse paths came 
from time to time together. Each praised the 
charms of the path he had taken, but each one 
knew that in other paths other men found as great 
delight. And as time went on many wise men 
passed over the way, and each in his own fashion 
left a record of all that had come to him. 

But the old Chart men kept in ever-increasing 
reverence. They found that its simple, honest words 
were words of truth, and whoso sought for truth 
gained with it courage and strength. But they 
covered it no longer with their own additions and 
interpretations. Nor did any one insist that what 



40 THE INNUMERABLE COMPANY. 

he found helpful to himself should be law unto 
others. No longer did men say to one another, 
" This path have I taken ; this way must thou go." 
And some one wrote upon the Chart this single 
rule of the forest: "Choose thou thine own best 
way, and help thy neighbor to find that way which 
for him is best." But this was erased at last; for 
beneath it they found the older, plainer words, 
which One in earlier times had written there, " Thy 
neighbor as thyself" 



THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 



THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

THE Alps are not confined to Switzerland. 
They fill that little country full and overflow 
in all directions, into Austria, Italy, Germany, and 
France. Beautiful everywhere, these mountains 
are nowhere more charming than in Southern Ba- 
varia. Grass-carpeted valleys, lakes as blue as the 
sky above them, dark slopes of pine and fir, over- 
topped by crags of gray limestone dashed by per- 
petual snow, the Bavarian Oberland is one of the 
most delightful regions in all Europe. When Attila 
and the Huns invaded Germany fifteen centuries 
ago, it is said that their cry was, "On to Bavaria — 
on to Bavaria! for there dwells the Lord God him- 
self!" 

In the heart of these mountains, shut off from 
the highways of travel by great walls of rock, lies 
the valley of the little river Ammer. Its waters 
are cold and clear, for they flow from mountain 
springs, and its willow-shaded eddies are full of 
trout. At first a brawling torrent, its current grows 
more gentle as the valley widens and the rocks 

43 



44 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

recede, and at last the little river flows quietly with 
broad windings through meadows carpeted with 
flowers. On these meadows, a couple of miles 
apart, lie the twin villages of the Ammer Valley — 
the one world-famous, the other unheard of beyond 
the sound of its church-bells — Ober and Unter 
Ammergau. 

Long, straggling, Swiss-like towns, these villages 
on the Ammer meadows are. You may find a hun- 
dred such between Innsbruck and Zurich. Stone 
houses, plastered outside and painted white, stand 
close together, each one passing gradually back- 
ward into woodshed, barn, and stable. You may 
lose your way in the narrow, crooked streets, as 
purposeless in their direction as the footsteps of the 
cows who first surveyed them. 

Oberammergau is a cleaner town than most, with 
a handsomer church, and a general evidence of 
local pride and modest prosperity. Frescoes on the 
walls of the houses here and there, paintings of 
saints and angels, bear witness to a love of beauty 
and to the prevalence of a religious spirit. These 
pictures, still bright after more than a century's 
wear, go back to the time when the peasant boy, 
Franz Zwink, of Oberammergau, mixed paints for a 
famous artist who painted the interior of the Ettal 



A WAVE OF ART. 45 

Monastery and the village church. The boy learned 
the art as well as the process, and when his master 
was gone, he covered the walls of his native town 
with pictures such as made men famous in other 
times and in other lands. The spirit of the Italian 
masters was his, and the work of Zwink at Ober- 
ammergau has been called " a wandering wave 
from the mighty sea of the Renaissance which has 
broken on a far-off coast." 

The Passion Play at Oberammergau has been 
characterized as a relic of medieval times — the last 
remains of the old Miracle Play. This is true, in 
the sense of historical continuity, and in that sense 
alone. The spirit of the times has penetrated even 
to this isolated valley, and its Passion Play is as 
much a product of our century as the poetry of 
Tennyson. Miracle Plays were shown at Oberam- 
mergau and in the town about it more than five 
hundred years ago, but the Passion Play of to-day 
is not like them. The imps and devils and all the 
machinery of superstition are gone. Harmony has 
taken the place of crudity, and the Christ of Ober- 
ammergau is the Christ of modern conception. The 
Miracle Play, dead or dying everywhere else, has 
lived and been perfected at Oberammergau. 

It has been pre-eminently the work of the Church 



46 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

of Rome to teach the common people, and to train 
them to obedience. In its teaching it has made 
use of every means which could serve its purposes. 
Didactic teaching is not effective with tired and 
sleepy peasants. Sermons soothe, rather than 
instruct, after a week of hard labor in the fields. 
Hence comes the need of object-teaching, if teach- 
ing is to be real. 

Images have been used in this way in the Catho- 
lic Church — not as objects to be worshiped, but as 
representations of sacred things. Paintings have 
served the same purpose. The noblest paintings in 
the world have been wrought to this end. It was in 
such lines alone that art could find worthy recog- 
nition. In like manner, processions and " Passion* 
Plays " have served the same purpose. 

The old Miracle Plays were grotesque enough — 
made by common people for the instruction of com- 
mon people. Even amid the pathos of divine suf- 
fering the peasants must be amused. Care was 
taken that the character of Judas should meet this 
demand. So Judas was made at once a traitor and 
a clown. His pathway was beset by devils of the 
most ridiculous sort. And when at last he hung 



* The word '•' passion," as used in the term "Passionspiel," signifies 
anguish or sorrow. The Passion Play is the story of the great anguish. 



DISAPPEARANCE OF SATAN. 47 

himself on the stage, his body burst open, and the 
long links of sausages which represented intestines 
were devoured by the imps amid the laughter and 
delight of the peasant audience. Now all this has 
passed away. Wise and learned men have taken 
the play in hand, and have left it a monument to 
their piety and good taste. Everything grotesque, 
or barbarous, or ridiculous has been eliminated. 
All else is subordinated to a faithful and artistic 
representation of the life and acts of Christ. Stately 
prose and the language of the Gospel narratives 
have been substituted for doggerel verse. As a 
work of art, the Passion Play deserves a high place 
in the literature of Germany. 

One striking feature of the Passion Play is the 
absence of superstitious elements. Beyond the 
dominating influence of the purpose of God, which 
is brought into strong prominence, there is almost 
nothing which suggests the supernatural or mirac- 
ulous. That little even is forgotten in the intensity 
of human interest. The Devil and his machina- 
tions have vanished entirely. One sees in the re- 
ligious customs of the people of Oberammergau few 
of the superstitions common among the peasant 
classes of other parts of Europe. In his little book, 
" Oberammergau und Seine Bewohner," Pastor 



48 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

Daisenberger says : " Superstitious beliefs and cus- 
toms one does not find here." Even the ordinary 
ghost-stories and traditions of Germany are out- 
worn and forgotten in this town. 

In 1634, so the tradition says, the black death 
came to Oberammergau, and one-tenth of the in- 
habitants died. The others made a vow, " a trem- 
bling vow, breathed in a night of tears," that if God 
should stay the plague, they would, on every tenth 
year, repeat in full, for the edification of the people, 
the Tragedy of the Passion. Other communities 
might build temples or monasteries, or could un- 
dertake pilgrimages; it should be their duty to 
show "The Way of the Cross." When this vow 
was taken, the pestilence ceased, and not another 
person perished. This was regarded by the people 
as a visible sign of divine approval. Thus every 
tenth year for nearly three centuries, ever since 
the time when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth 
Rock, with varying fortunes and interruptions, 
the Passion Play has been represented in Oberam- 
mergau. 

The play in its present form is essentially the 
work of Josef Alois Daisenberger, who was for 
twenty years pastor of the church at Oberammer- 
gau. In this town he was born in the last year 



AIM OF THE PASSION PLAY. 49 

of the last century, and there he died, in 1888, 
revered and beloved by all who came near him. 

"I wrote the play," Pastor Daisenberger said, 
" for the love of my Divine Redeemer, and with no 
other object in view than the edification of the 
Christian world." 

The first aim of the Passion Play has been the 
training of the common people. To its various 
representations came the peasants of Bavaria, Wiir- 
temberg, and the Tyrol, on horses, on donkeys, on 
foot, a long and difficult journey across mountain- 
walls and through great forests. It was the mem- 
ory and inspiration of a lifetime to have seen the 
Passion Play. 

About forty years ago the tourist world discov- 
ered this scene; and since then, on the decennial 
year, an ever-increasing interest has been felt, an 
ever-growing stream of travel has been turned 
toward the Ammer Valley. All, prince or peasant, 
are treated alike by the simple, honest people, and 
the same preparation is made for the reception of 
all. The purpose of the play should be kept in 
mind in any just criticism. To have the right to 
discuss it at all, one must treat it in a spirit of 
sympathy. 

We came into Oberammergau on Friday, the 1st 



50 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

day of August, 1890, to witness the performance of 
the Sunday following. The city of Munich, seventy 
miles away, was crowded with visitors, all bound 
to the Passion Play. The express-train of twenty 
cars which carried us from Munich was crowded 
with people from almost every part of the civilized 
world. 

At Oberau, six miles from Oberammergau, at the 
foot of the Ettal Mountain, we left the railway, and 
there took part in a general scramble for seats in the 
carriages. The fine new road winds through dark 
pine woods, climbing the hill in long zigzags above 
wild chasms, past the old monastery of Ettal, and 
then slowly descends to the soft Ammer meadows. 
The great peak of the Kofel is ever in front, while 
the main chain of the Bavarian Alps closes the 
view behind. 

Arrived in the little village, all was bustle and 
confusion. The streets were full of people — some 
busy in taking care of strangers, others sauntering 
idly about, as if at a country fair. Young women, 
in black bodices and white sleeves, welcomed the 
visitors at the little inns or served them in the 
shops. Everywhere were young men in Tyrolese 
holiday attire — green coats, black slouch hats, with 
a feather or sprig of Edelweiss in the hat-band, and 



THE PLAY BEGINS. 51 

with trousers, like those of the Scottish Highland- 
ers, which end hopelessly beyond the reach of either 
shoes or stockings. Besides the rustics and the 
tourists, one met here and there upon the streets 
men whose grave demeanor and long black hair 
resting on their shoulders proclaimed them to be 
actors in the Passion Play. 

On Sunday morning we were awakened by the 
sound of a cannon planted at the foot of the Kofel, 
a sharp, conical, towering mountain, some two 
thousand feet above the town, and bearing on its 
summit a tall gilded cross. It was cold and rainy, 
but that made no difference with the audience or 
the play. At eight o'clock, when the cannon sounds 
again, all are in their places, and the play begins. 
It lasts for eight hours — from eight o'clock in the 
morning to half-past five in the afternoon, with a 
single interruption of an hour and a half at noon. 
The stage is wide and ample. Its central part is 
covered, but the front, which represents the fields 
and the streets of Jerusalem, is in the open air. 
This feature lends the play a special charm. On 
the left, across the stage, over which the fitful rain- 
clouds chase one another, we can plainly see the 
long, green slope of Ettal mountain, dotted from 
bottom to top with herdmen's huts or chalets, and 



52 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

on the summit a tall pine-tree, standing out alone 
above all its brethren. On the other side appear 
the wild crags of the Kofel, its gilded cross glisten- 
ing in the sunshine above the morning mists. 
Swallows fly in and out among the painted palm- 
trees, their twitter sounding sharply above the 
music of the chorus. The little birds raise their 
voices to make themselves heard to each other. 

As the play progresses the intense truthfulness of 
the people of Oberammergau steadily grows upon 
us. For many generations the best intellects and 
noblest lives in the town have been devoted to the 
sole end of giving a worthy picture of the life and 
acts of Christ. Each generation of actors has left 
this picture more noble than it ever was before. 
Their work has been wrought in a spirit of serious 
truthfulness, which in itself places the Oberammer- 
gau stage in a class by itself, above and beyond all 
other theaters. Everything is real, and stands for 
what it is. Kings and priests are dressed, not in 
flimsy tinsel, but in garments such as real kings 
and priests may have worn. And so no artificial 
light or glare of fireworks is needed to make these 
costumes effective. And this genuineness enables 
these simple players to produce effects which the 
richest theaters would scarcely dare to undertake; 



HOW OBEBAMMEBGAU WAS MADE. 53 

and all this in the open air, in glaring snnshine 
or in pouring rain. The players themselves can 
scarcely be called actors. In their way, they 
are strong beyond all mere actors, and for this 
reason — that they do not seem to act. From 
childhood they have grown up in the parts they 
play. Childish voices learn the solemn music 
of the chorus in the schools, and childish forms 
mingle in the triumphal procession in the regular 
church festivals. All the effects of accumulated 
tradition, all the results of years of training tend 
to make of them, not actors at all, but living figures 
of the characters they represent. And we can look 
back over the history of Oberammergau, and see 
how, through the growth of this purpose of its life, 
it has come to be unique among all the towns of 
Europe. 

Many have wondered that in so small a town 
there should be so many men of striking person- 
ality. The reason for this is to be sought in the 
operation of natural selection. In the ordinary 
German village, the best men find no career. They 
go from home to the cities or to foreign lands, in 
search of the work and influence not to be secured 
at home. The strongest go, and the dull remain. 
All this is reversed at Oberammergau. Only the 



54 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

native citizen takes part in the play. Those who 
are stupid or vicious are excluded from it. Not to 
take part in the play is to have no reason for re- 
maining in Oberammergau. To be chosen for an 
important part is the highest honor the people 
know. So the influences at work retain the best 
and exclude the others. Moreover, the leading 
families of Oberammergau, the families of Zwink, 
Lang, Rendl, Mayr, Lechner, Diemer, etc., are 
closely related by intermarriage. These people are 
all of one blood — all of one great family. This 
family is one of actors, serious, intelligent, devoted, 
and all these virtues are turned to effect in their 
acting. 

This work is that of a lifetime. Little boys and 
girls come on the stage in the arms of the mothers 
— matrons of Jerusalem. Older boys shout in the 
rabble and become at last Roman soldiers or ser- 
vants of the High Priest. Still later, the best of 
them are ranged among the Apostles, and the rare 
genius becomes Pilate, John, Judas, or the Christ. 

In the house of mine host, the chief of the 
money-changers in the temple, the eldest daughter 
was called Magdalena. In 1890, at fourteen, she 
was leader of the girls in the tableau of the falling 
manna. In 1900, she may, perhaps, become Mary 



THE CHORUS. 55 

Magdalen, the end in life which her parents have 
chosen for her. 

After the cannon sounds, the chorus of guardian 
spirits (Schutzengeister) comes forward to make plain 
by speech or action the meaning of the coming 
scenes. This chorus is modeled after the chorus in 
the Greek plays. It is composed of twenty-four 
singers, the best that Oberammergau has, all pic- 
turesquely clad in Greek costumes, — ■ white tunics, 
trimmed with gold, and over these an outer mantle 
of some deep, quiet shade, the whole forming a 
perfect harmony of soft Oriental colors. Stately 
and beautiful the. chorus is throughout. The time 
which in ordinary theaters is devoted to the ar- 
ranging of scenes behind a blank curtain is here 
filled by the songs and recitations of the guardian 
spirits. Once in the play the chorus appears in 
black, in keeping with the dark scenes they come 
forth to foretell. But at the end the bright robes 
are resumed, while the play closes with a burst of 
triumph from their lips. 

At the beginning of each act, the leader of the 
singers, the village schoolmaster, comes forth from 
the chorus, and the curtain parts, revealing a 
tableau illustrative of the coming seenes. These 
tableaux, some thirty or forty in number, are taken 



56 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

from scenes in the Old Testament which are sup- 
posed to prefigure acts in the life of Christ. Thus 
the treachery of Judas is prefigured by the sale of 
Joseph by his brethren. The farewell at Bethany 
has its type in the mourning bride in the Song of 
Solomon ; the Crucifixion, in the brazen serpent of 
Moses. Sometimes the connection between the tab- 
leaux and the scenes is not easily traced ; but even 
then the pictures justify themselves by their own 
beauty. Often five hundred people are brought on 
the stage at once. These range in size from the 
tall and patriarchal Moses to children of two years. 
But, old or young, there is never a muscle or a fold 
of garment out of place. The first tableau repre- 
sents Adam and Eve driven from Eden by the angel 
with the flaming sword. It was not easy to believe 
that these figures were real. They were as change- 
less as wax. They did not even wink. The critic 
may notice that the hands of the women are large 
and brown, and the children's faces not free from 
sunburn. But there is no other hint that these 
exquisite pictures are made up from the village 
boys and girls, those who on other days milk the 
cows and scrub the floors in the little town. The 
marvelously varied costumes and the grouping of 
these tableaux are the work of the drawing-teacher, 



"NICHT EWIG ZURNET ER." 57 

Ludwig Lang. Without appearing anywhere in the 
play, this gifted man makes himself everywhere 
felt in the delicacy of his feeling for harmonies of 
color. 

At the beginning of the play the leader of the 
chorus addresses the audience as friends and 
brothers who are present for the same reason as the 
actors themselves — namely, to assist devoutly at 
the mystery to be set forth, the story of the redemp- 
tion of the world. The purpose is, as far as may 
be, to share the sorrows of the Saviour and to 
follow him step by step on the way of his suffer- 
ings to the cross and sepulcher. Then comes the 
prologue, solemnly intoned, of which the most 
striking words are these: 

"Nicht ewig ziirnet Er 
Ich will, so spricht der Herr, 
Den Tod des Sunders nicht." 



* ( He will not be angry forever. I, saith the Lord, 
will not the death of the sinner. I will forgive 
him ; he shall live, and in my Son's blood shall 
be reconciled." 

When its part is finished the chorus retires, and 
the Passion Play begins with the entry of Christ 
into Jerusalem. Far in the distance we hear the 
music, " Hail to thee, David's son ! " Then fol- 



58 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

lows a seemingly endless procession of men, women, 
and children who wave palm-leaves and shout 
hosannas. One little flaxen-haired girl, dressed in 
blue, and carrying a long, slender palm-leaf, is 
especially striking in her beauty and naturalness. 

At last He comes, riding sidewise upon a beast 
that seems too small for his great stature. He is 
dressed in a purple robe, over which is a mantle 
of rich crimson. Beside him, in red and olive- 
green, is the girlish-looking youth, Peter Rendl, 
who takes the part of Saint John. Behind him 
follow his disciples, each with the pilgrim's staff. 
Two of these are more conspicuous than the others. 
One is a white-haired, eager old man, wearing a 
mantle of olive-green. The other, younger, dark, 
sullen, and tangle-haired, dressed in a robe of saf- 
fron over dull yellow, is the only person in the 
throng out of harmony with the prevailing joy- 
ousness. 

Followed by the people, who stand apart in rev- 
erence as he passes among them, Christ approaches 
the temple. His face is pale, in marked contrast to 
his abundant black hair. His expression is serious, 
or even care-worn, less mild than in the usual pic- 
tures of Jesus, but certainly in keeping with the 
scenes of the Passion Play. A fine, strong, mas- 




PETER RENDL AS SAINT JOHN. 



"CHRISTUS" MAYR. 61 

terful man of great stature and immense physical 
strength is the wood-carver, Josef Mayr, who now 
for three successive decades has taken this part. A 
man of attractive presence and lofty bearing, one 
whom every eye follows as he goes about the town 
on the round of his daily duties, yet simple-hearted 
and modest, as becomes one who takes on himself 
not only the dress but the name and figure of the 
Saviour. 

Essays have been written on " Christus " Mayr 
and his conception of Jesus, and I can only assent 
to the general impression. To me it seems that 
Mayr's thought of Christ is one which all must 
accept. He appears as " one driven by the Spirit," 
— the great mild teacher, the man who can afford 
to be silent before kings and before mobs, and to 
whom the pains of Calvary are not more deep than 
the sorrows of Gethsemane, the man who comes to 
do the work of his Father, regardless alike of 
human praise or of human contempt. The great 
strength of the presentation is that it brings to the 
front the essentials of Christ's life and death. There 
is no suggestion of theological subtleties nor of the 
ceremonies of any church. It is simply true and 
terrible. 

From one of his fellow-actors, I learned this of 



62 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

Josef Mayr. He has always been what he is now, a 
hand- worker ("gemeiner Arbeiter") in Oberammer- 
gau. He has never been away from his native 
town except once, when he went as a workman to 
Vienna, and once when, in 1870, the play was inter- 
rupted by the war with France, and Mayr himself 
was taken into the army. Out of respect to his art, 
he was never sent to the front, but kept in the gar- 
rison at Munich. When the war was over, and he 
came back, in 1871, the grateful villagers resumed 
the play as their "best method of thanking God 
who had given them the blessings of victory and 
peace." 

Canon Farrar, of Westminster, has given us the 
best and most sympathetic account yet published of 
the various actors. Of Mayr he said : " It is no small 
testimony to the goodness and the ability of Josef 
Mayr that in his representation of Christ he does 
not offend us by a single word or a single gesture. 
If there were in his manner the slightest touch of 
affectation or of self-consciousness ; if there were the 
remotest suspicion of a strut in his gait, we should be 
compelled to turn aside in disgust. As it is, we for- 
get the artist altogether. For it is easy to see that 
Josef Mayr forgets himself, and wishes only to give 
a faithful picture of the events in the Gospel story." 



CLEARING THE TEMPLE. 63 

As the Master enters the temple, he finds that its 
courts are filled with a noisy throng of money- 
changers, peddlers, and dealers in animals for sac- 
rifice. He is filled with wrath and indignation. 
In a commanding tone, he orders them to take 
their own and leave this holy place. "There is 
room enough for trading outside. 'My house/ 
thus saith the Lord, ' shall be a house of prayer to 
all the people.' Ye have made it a den of thieves." 
(" Zur Rduberhdhle, habt Ihr es gemacht!"') 

The peddlers pay no attention to his protest. 
Then, with a sudden burst of wrath, he breaks upon 
them, overturning their tables, scattering their gold 
upon the floor, and beating them with thongs. 
The animals kept for sacrifice are released. The 
sheep scamper backward to the rear of the stage, 
and escape through the open door. The white 
doves fly out over the heads of the spectators, and 
are lost against the green slopes of the Kofel. 

The play now follows the Gospel narrative very 
closely. It is, in fact, the Gospel story, with only 
such changes as fit it for continuous presentation. 
Events aside from the current of the story, such as 
the wedding at Cana and the raising of Lazarus, 
are omitted. There are few long speeches. The 
leading features of what may be called the plot, the 



64 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

wrath of the money-changers, the fierce hatred of 
the Pharisees, the avarice of Judas, which makes 
him their tool, are all sharply emphasized. 

The next scene introduces us to the High Coun- 
cil of the Jews, and to its leading spirit, Caiaphas. 
Caiaphas is represented by the burgomaster of the 
village, Johann Lang. " No medieval pope," says 
Canon Farrar, " could pronounce his sentences with 
more dignity and verve. He is what has been 
called 'that terrible creature, the perfect priest.'" 
Violent, unforgiving, and harsh, he is the soul of 
the conspiracy. His strong determination is reflect- 
ed in the weak malignity of his colleague, Annas, 
as well as in the priests and scribes. " While he 
lives," Caiaphas says, " there is no peace for Israel. 
It is better that one man should die, that the whole 
nation perish not." 

We next behold Jesus accompanied by his dis- 
ciples on the road toward the house of Simon of 
Bethany. As they walk along, he talks sadly of his 
approaching death. None of them can understand 
his words ; for to them he has been victorious over 
all his enemies. "A word from thee," says Peter, 
" and they are crushed." " I see not," says Thomas, 
" why thou speakest so often of sorrow and death. 
Do we not read in the prophets that Christ lives 






JUDAS AND THE POT OF OINTMENT. 65 

forever? Thou canst not die, for with thy power 
thou wakest even the dead." Even John declares 
that Christ's words are dark and dismal, while he 
and his associates use every effort to cheer the 
Master. 

At the house of Simon of Bethany, Mary Mag- 
dalen breaks the costly dish of ointment. Judas, 
who carries the slender purse of the disciples, is 
vexed at the waste, and talks of all the good the 
value of this ointment might have done if given to 
the poor. 

Very carefully worked out is the character of 
Judas, represented by Johann Zwink, the miller of 
Oberammergau, who ten years ago took the part of 
Saint John. The people of Oberammergau regard 
Zwink as the most gifted of all their actors ; for he 
can, they say, play any part. (" Er spielt alle Rolle.") 
Gregor Lechner, who in his younger days had the 
part of Judas, is now Simon of Bethany. Of all 
the actors of Oberammergau, the people told us, 
Lechner is the most beloved (" bestens beliebt"). 

In Zwink's conception, Judas is a man full of 
ambition, but without enthusiasm. He is attracted 
by the power of Christ, from which he expects 
great results. But Christ seems to care little for 
his own mighty works. " My mission," he says, "is 



66 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

not to command, but to serve." So Judas becomes 
impatient and dissatisfied. The eager enthusiasm 
of Peter and the tender devotion of John alike 
bore and disgust him. So the emissaries of Caia- 
phas find him half-prepared for their mission. He 
admits that he has made a mistake in joining his 
fortunes to those of an unpractical and sorrowful 
prophet who lets great opportunities slip from his 
grasp, and who wastes a fortune in precious oint- 
ment with no more thought than if it had been 
water. " There has of late been a coolness between 
him and ine," he confesses. " I am tired," he says, 
" of hoping and waiting, with nothing before me 
except poverty, humiliation, perhaps even torture 
and the prison." He is especially ill at ease when 
the Master speaks of his approaching death. "If 
thou givest up thy life," he says, " what will become 
of us?" And so Judas reasons with himself that he 
can afford to be prudent. If his Master fail, then 
he must be a false prophet, and there is no use in 
following him. If he succeed, as with his mighty 
power he can hardly fail to do, then, says Judas, 
" I will throw myself at his feet. He is such a good 
man ; never have I seen him cast a penitent away. 
But I fear to face the Master. His sharp look goes 
through and through me. Still at the most I shall 




JOHAXN ZWINK AS JUDAS. 



THE MADONNA. 69 

only tell the priests where my Master is." And thus 
the good and bad impulses struggle for the mas- 
tery, giving to this character the greatest tragic 
interest. He visibly shrinks before the words of 
Christ, " One of you shall betray me." In the High 
Council he cringes under the scorching reproach 
of Nicodemus. " Dost thou not blush," Nicodemus 
says, "to sell thy Lord and Master? This blood- 
money calls to heaven for revenge. Some day it 
will burn hot in thine avarice-sunken soul." 

But the High Priest says, " Come, Judas, take 
the silver, and be a man." And when the thirty 
pieces are counted out to him, he cannot resist the 
temptation, but clutches them with a miser's grasp 
and hurries off to intercept the Master on his way 
through the Garden of Gethsemane. Meanwhile, 
after a tender farewell from his mother, Christ 
leaves the house of Simon of Bethany, and, with 
his disciples, takes the road to Jerusalem. 

The part of Mary the mother of Christ is admir- 
ably taken by Rosa Lang. In dress and mien, she 
seems to have stepped down from some picture- 
frame of Baphael or Murillo. The Mary of Rosa 
Lang is in every respect a worthy companion of 
Mayr's Christus. 

The various scenes in which the Apostles appear 



70 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

are modeled more or less after the great religious 
paintings, especially those of the Bavarian artist, 
Albrecht Diirer. The Last Supper is a living rep- 
resentation of the famous painting of Leonardo da 
Vinci in the refectory at Milan. Peter and Judas 
are here brought into sharp contrast. Next to 
Christ, is the slender figure of the beloved disci- 
ple. The characters of the different Apostles are 
placed in bold relief. We are at once interested 
in the fine face of Andreas Lang, the Apostle 
Thomas, critical and questioning, but altogether 
loyal. The Apostle Philip looks for signs and 
visions, and would see the Father coming in His 
glory from the skies, not in the common everyday 
scenes of life into which the Master led them. 
" Have I been so long time with thee, and yet hast 
thou not known me, Philip? " 

Next comes the night scene in the Garden of 
Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. The tired 
Apostles rest upon the grassy bank, and one by one 
they fall asleep. Even Peter, who is nearest the 
Master, can keep awake no longer. Christ kneels 
upon the rocks above the sleeping Peter. "0 
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." 
He looks back to his disciples. " Are your eyes so 
heavy that ye cannot watch ? The weight of God's 




ROSA LANG AS MARY. 



THE DENIAL OF PETEB. 73 

justice lies upon me. The sins of the fallen world 
weigh me down. Father, if it is not possible that 
this hour go by, then may thy holy will be done." 

Suddenly a great tumult is heard. The faint 
light of the morning is reflected from the clanging 
armor and from glittering spears. The Apostles 
are rudely awakened. Judas comes forth and 
greets the Master with a kiss. At this signal, the 
Master is seized by the soldiers and roughly bound. 
Then he is carried away, first to Annas, and after- 
wards to the house of Caiaphas. 

Of the scenes that immediately follow, the most 
striking is that of the denial of Peter. Peter, as 
represented by the sexton of the church, Jacob Hitt, 
is an old man with a young heart, eager and im- 
pulsive. He dreams of the noble part he will take 
while standing by the Master's side before kings 
and priests, but behaves very humanly when he is 
brought face to face with an unexpected test. 

The scenes of the night have crowded thick and 
fast. The Apostles have been scattered by the sol- 
diers. The Master had been bound, and carried 
away they know not whither. Peter had tried to 
defend him, but was told to " put away his useless 
sword." In forlorn agony Peter and John wander 
about in the dark, seeking news of Jesus. They 



74 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

meet a servant who tells them that he has been car- 
ried before the High Priest, and that the whole 
brood of his followers is to be rooted out. 

Near the house of the High Priest Annas we see 
a sort of inn occupied by rough soldiers. The night 
is damp and cold. A maid has kindled a fire in the 
courtyard, and Peter approaches it to warm his 
hands, and, if possible, to gain some further news 
of the Master. He hears the soldiers talking of 
Malchus, one of their number who had had his ear 
cut off. They boast of what they will do with the 
culprit, if he should ever fall into their power. "An 
ear for an ear," he hears them say. Suddenly the 
maid turns towards Peter and says, "Yes, you, 
surely you were with the Nazarene Jesus." Peter 
hestitates. Should he confess, he would have his 
own ears cut off, an ear for an ear — and most likely 
his head, too, while his body would be thrown out 
on the rubbish heap behind the inn. Peter had 
said that he would die for the Master ; and so he 
would on the field of battle, or in any way where 
he might have a glorious death. He would die for 
the Master, but not then and there. The death of 
a martyr has its pleasures, no doubt, but not the 
death of a dog. 

While Peter stood thus considering these matters, 



THE FIELD OF BLOOD. 75 

one and then another of the servants insisted that 
he had surely been seen with the Nazarene Jesus. 
Again and again Peter refused all knowledge of the 
Master. When the cock crew once more he had 
denied his Master thrice. While Peter still insisted, 
the door opened and the Master came forth under 
the High Priest's sentence of death. "And the 
Lord turned and looked upon Peter, and Peter went 
out and wept bitterly." " Oh, Master/' he says in 
the play : 

'* Oh, Master, how have I fallen ! 
I have denied thee, how can it be possible? 
Three times denied thee ! Oh, thou knowest, Lord, 
I was resolved to follow thee to death." 

Meanwhile Judas hears the story of what has 
happened. He is at once filled with agony and 
remorse, for he had not expected it. He was sure 
that the great power of the Master would bring 
him through safely at last. In helpless agony, he 
rushes before the Council and makes an ineffective 
protest. "No peace for me fore verm ore; no peace 
for you, 1 ' he says. "The blood of the innocent 
cries aloud for justice." He is repulsed with cold 
indifference. Will it or not," says the High Priest, 
" he must die, and it would be well for thee to look 
out for thyself." 



76 THE STOBY OF THE PASSION. 

In fury he cries out, "If he dies, then am I a 
traitor. May ten thousand devils tear me in 
pieces! Here, ye bloodhounds, take back your 
curse ! " And flinging the blood-money at the feet 
of the priests, he flies from their presence, pursued 
by the specter of his crime. 

The next scene shows us the field of blood — a 
wind-swept desert, with one forlorn tree in the 
foreground. We see the wretched Judas before the 
tree. He tears off his girdle, " a snake," he calls it, 
and places it about his neck, snapping off a branch 
of the tree in his haste to fasten it. " Here, accursed 
life, I end thee; let the most miserable of all fruit 
hang upon this tree." In the actjon we feel that 
Judas is not so much wicked as weak. He has 
little faith and little imagination, and his folly 
of avarice hurries him into betrayal. Those who 
see the play feel as the actors feel, that Christ knows 
the weakness of man. He would have forgiven 
Judas, just as he forgave Peter. 

In the early morning Christ is brought before 
Pontius Pilate. The Roman governor, admirably 
represented by Thomas Eendl, appears in the bal- 
cony and talks down to Caiaphas, who sends up his 
accusations from the street below. His clear sense 
of justice makes Pilate at first more than a match 






PILATE AND HEROD. 77 

for the conspirators. With magnificent scorn he 
tells Caiaphas that he is " astounded at his sudden 
zeal for Caesar." Of Christ he says : " He seems to 
me a wise man — so wise that these dark men can- 
not bear the light from his wisdom." Learning 
that Jesus is from Galilee, he throws the whole 
matter into the hands of Herod, the governor of 
that province. 

The words of Pilate are very finely spoken. 
"We marvel," says one writer, "how the peasant 
Rendl learned to bear himself so nobly or to utter 
the famous question, 'What is truth?' with a cer- 
tain dreamy inward expression and tone, as though 
outward circumstances had for the instant vanished 
from his mind, and he were alone with his own 
soul and the flood of thought raised by the words 
of Jesus." 

In contrast to Pilate, stands Herod, lazy and 
voluptuous. He, too, finds nothing of evil in Jesus, 
whom he supposes to be a clever magician. " Cause 
that this hall may become dark," he says, " or that 
this roll of paper, which is thy sentence of death, 
shall become a serpent." He receives Christ in 
good-natured expectancy, which changes to disgust 
when he answers him not a word. Herod pro- 
nounces him " dumb as a fish," and, after clothing 



78 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

hini in a splendid purple mantle, he sends him 
away unharmed, with the title of " King of Fools." 

Again Christ is brought before Pilate, who tells 
Caiaphas plainly that his accusations mean only 
his own personal hatred, and that the voice of 
the people is but the senseless clamor of the mob 
set in operation by intrigue. Pilate orders Jesus 
to be scourged, in the hope that the sight of his 
noble bearing amid unmerited cruelties may soften 
the hearts of the people. Nowhere does the noble 
figure of Mayr appear to better advantage than 
in this scene, where, after a brutal chastisement, 
scarcely lessened in the presentation on the stage, 
the Roman soldiers place a cattail flag in his hand 
and salute him as a king. 

Pilate then brings forth an abandoned wreck of 
humanity, old Barabbas, the murderer. As Christ 
stands before them, blood-stained and crowned with 
thorns, half in hope and half in irony, Pilate invites 
them to choose. "Behold the man," he said, "a 
wise teacher whom ye have long honored, guilty 
of no evil deed. Jesus or Barabbas, which will ye 
choose?" 

All the more fiercely the mob cries, " Crucify him ! 
Crucify him ! " 

Pilate is puzzled. " I cannot understand these 




" ECCE HOMO 



" FOB LOVE OF THEE, I BEAR THY CBOSS." 81 

people," lie said. " But a few days ago, ye followed 
this man with rejoicing through the streets of Jeru- 
salem." The High Priest threatens to appeal to 
Eome. Pilate fears to face such an appeal. He has 
little confidence in the favor or the justice of the 
Csesar whom he serves. At last he consents to what 
he calls " a great wrong in order to avert a greater 
evil." He calls for water, and washes his hands in 
ostentatious innocence. Finally, as he signs the 
verdict of condemnation in wrath and disgust, he 
breaks his staff of office, and flings the fragments 
upon the stairs, at the feet of the priests. 

Next we behold in the foreground of the stage, 
John and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with them 
a little group of followers. A tumult is heard, and, 
in the midst of a great throng of people, we see 
three crosses borne by prisoners. Jesus beholds his 
mother. Suddenly he faints, under the weight of 
the cross. The rough soldiers urge him on. Simon 
of Cyrene, a sturdy passer-by, who is carrying home 
provisions from the market, is seized by the sol- 
diers and forced to give aid. At first he refuses. 
" I will not do it," he says ; " I am a free man, and 
no criminal." But his indignant protests turn to 
pity, when he beholds the Holy Man of Nazareth. 
"For the love of thee," he says, "will I bear thy 



82 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

cross. Oh, could I make myself thus worthy in thy 
sight!" 

The closing scenes of the Passion Play, associated 
as they are with all that has been held sacred by 
our race for nearly two thousand years, are thrill- 
ing beyond comparison. No one can witness them 
unmoved. No one can forget the impression made 
by the living pictures. In simplicity and reverence, 
the work is undertaken, and it awakens in the be- 
holder only corresponding feelings. Every heart, 
for the time at least, is stirred to its depths. 

"When the curtain rises, two crosses are seen, each 
in its place. The central cross is not yet raised. 
The Roman soldiers take their time for it. " Come, 
now," says one of them, " we must put this Jewish 
king upon his throne." So the heavy cross, with its 
burden, is raised in its place. We see the bloody 
nails in his hands and feet ; and so realistic is the 
representation, that the nearest spectator cannot 
see that he is not actually nailed to the cross. 
There is no haste shown in the presentation. The 
Crucifixion is not a tableau, displayed for an 
instant and then withdrawn. The scene lasts so 
long that one feels a strange sense of surprise when 
Christus Mayr appears alive again. 

Twenty minutes is the time actually taken for the 






" WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN I HAVE WRITTEN:' S3 

representation. " It is hard," said our landlady, 
the good Frau Wiedermann, " to be on the cross so 
long, even if one is not actually nailed to it. It is 
hard for the thieves, too," she said, " as well as for 
Josef Mayr." 

The thieves themselves deserve a moment's notice. 
The one on the right is a bald old man, who meets 
his death in patience and humility. The one on 
the left is a robust young fellow, who defies his asso- 
ciates and tormentors alike, and joins his voice to 
that of the rabble in scoffing at the power of Jesus. 
" If thou be a god," he says, " save thyself and us." 
There is at first a struggle over the inscription at the 
head of the cross. " Let it read, ' He called himself 
the King of the Jews/ " say the priests. But the 
Roman soldier is obdurate. " What I have written 
I have written," and the centurion grimly nails it 
on the cross above his head, regardless alike of their 
rage and protestations. 

Meanwhile, in the foreground the four Eoman 
guards part the purple robe of Christ, each one 
taking his share. But the seamless coat they will 
not divide. So they cast the dice on the ground to 
see to whom this prize shall fall. They are in no 
hurry. Traitors and thieves have all night to die 
in, and they can wait for them. The first soldier 



84 THE STORY OF THE PASSION. 

throws a low number, and gives up the contest. 
The second does better. The third calls up to the 
cross, " If thou be a god, help me to throw a lucky 
number." One cast of the dice is disputed. It has 
to be tried again.' 

Meanwhile we hear the poor dying body on the 
cross, in a voice broken with agony, " Father, forgive 
them, for they know not what they do." Again, 
amid the railings of the Jews, " My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?" Then again, after a 
sharp cry of pain, " It is finished! " 

The captain drives the scoffing mob away, bid- 
ding the women come nearer. Then a Roman sol- 
dier, sent by Pilate, comes and breaks the legs of 
the thieves. We hear their bones crack under the 
club. Their heads fall, their muscles shrink, as the 
breath leaves the body. But finding that Jesus is 
already dead, the soldier breaks not his legs, but 
thrusts a spear into his side. We can see the spear 
pierce the flesh, but we cannot see that the blood 
flows from the spear-point itself, and not from the 
Master's body. The soldiers fall back with a 
feeling of awe. Then, one by one, as the darkness 
falls, we see them file away on the road to Jeru- 
salem, and the Son of Man is left in silence. 

Then follows the descent from the cross, which 



THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 85 

suggests comparison with Rubens' famous painting 
in the Cathedral at Antwerp, but here shown with 
a fineness of touch and delicacy of feeling which 
that great painter of muscles and mantles could 
never attain. We see Nicodemus climb the ladder 
leaned against the back of the cross. He takes off 
first the crown of thorns. It is laid silently at 
Mary's feet. He pulls out the nails one by one. 
We hear them fail upon the ground. With the last 
one falls the wrench with which he has drawn it. 
Passing a long roll of white cloth over each arm of 
the cross, he lets the Saviour down into the strong 
arms of Joseph of Arimathea, and, at last, into the 
loving embrace of John and Mary. No description 
can give an idea of the all-compelling force of this 
scene. A treatment less reverent than is given by 
these peasants would make it an intolerable blas- 
phemy. As it is, its justification is its perfection. 
And this is the justification of the Passion Play 
itself. It can never become a show. It can never 
be carried o other countries. It never can be 
given under other circumstances. So long as its 
players are pure in heart and humble in spirit, so 
long can they keep their well-earned right to show 
to the world the Tragedy of the Cross. 



THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 



THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE.* 

THERE is something in the name of Spain 
which calls up impressions rich, warm, and 
romantic. The "color of romance," which must 
be something between the hue of a purple grape 
and the red haze of the Indian summer, hangs 
over everything Spanish. Castles in Spain have 
ever been the fairest castles, and the banks of the 
Xenil and the Guadalquivir still bound the dream- 
land of the poet. 

"There was never a castle seen 
So fair as mine in Spain; 
It stands embowered in green, 
Overlooking a gentle slope, 
On a hill by the Xenil's shore." 

It has been said of Spanish rule in California, 
that its history was written upon sand, only to 
be washed away by the advancing tide of Saxon 
civilization. So far as the economic or political 
development of our State is concerned, this is true; 



"Address at the Teachers' Institute at Monterey, California, Septem- 
ber, 1893. 



90 J THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

the Mission period had no part in it, and its heroes 
have left no imperishable monuments. 

But in one respect our Spanish predecessors have 
had a lasting influence, and the debt we owe to 
them, as yet scarcely appreciated, is one which will 
grow with the ages. It is said that Father Crespi, 
in 1770, gave Spanish names to every place where he 
encamped at night, and these names, rich and melo- 
dious, make the map of California unique among 
the States of the Union. It is fitting that the most 
varied, picturesque, and lovable of all the States 
should be the one thus favored. We feel every- 
where the charm of the Spanish language — Latin 
cut loose from scholastic bonds, with a dash of 
firmness from the Visigoth and a touch of warmth 
from the sun-loving Moor. The names of Mariposa, 
San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and 
Monterey can never grow mean or common. In 
the counties along the coast, there is scarcely a 
hill, or stream, or village that does not bear some 
melodious trace of Spanish occupation. 

To see what California might have been, we have 
only to turn away from the mission counties to the 
foothills of the Sierras, where the mining-camps of 
the Anglo-Saxon bear such names as Fiddletown, 
Red Dog, Dutch Flat, Murder Gulch, Ace of Spades, 



CABR1LL0 AND SIR FRANCIS BRAKE. 91 

or Murderer's Bar; these changing later, by euphe- 
mistic vulgarity, into Ruby City, Magnolia Yale, 
Largentville, Idlewild, and the like. Or, if not 
these, our Anglo-Saxon practically gives us, not 
Our Lady of the Solitude, nor the City of the Holy 
Cross, not Fresno, the ash, nor Mariposa, the butter- 
fly, but the momentous repetition of Smithvilles, 
Jonesboroughs, and Brownstowns, which makes the 
map of the Mississippi Valley a waste of unpoetical 
mediocrity. 

So the Spanish names constitute our legacy from 
the Mission Fathers. It is now nearly three hun- 
dred and fifty years since Alta California was dis- 
covered, one hundred and twenty years since it was 
colonized by white people, and a little over forty 
years since it became a part of our republic. In 
1542, Cabrillo had sailed up the coast as far as 
Cape Mendocino. In 1577, Sir Francis Drake came 
as far north as Point Reyes, where, seeing the 
white cliffs of Marin County, he called the country 
New Albion. Better known than these to Spanish- 
speaking people was the voyage of Sebastian Viz- 
caino, who, in 1602, had coasted along as far as Point 
Reyes, and had left a full account of his discoveries. 
The landlocked harbor which Cabrillo had named 
San Miguel, Vizcaino re-christened in honor of his 



92 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

flag-ship, San Diego de Alcala. Farther north, 
Vizcaino found a glorious deep and sheltered bay, 
" large enough to float all the navies of the world," 
he said ; and this, in honor of the Viceroy of Mexico, 
he called the Bay of Monterey. To a broad curve 
of the coast to the north, between Point San Pedro 
and Point Reyes, he gave the name of the Bay of 
San Francisco,* dedicating it to the memory of St. 
Francis of Assisi. A rough chart of the coast was 
made by his pilot, Cabrera Bueno, who left also an 
account of its leading features. 

For a hundred and sixty years after Vizcaino's 
expedition, no use was made of his discoveries. In 
Professor Blackmar's words : " During all this time, 
not a European boat cut the surf of the northwest 
coast ; not a foreigner trod the shore of Alta Cali- 
fornia. The white-winged galleon, plying its trade 
between Acapulco and the Philippines, occasionally 
passed near enough so that those on board might 
catch glimpses of the dark timber-line of the moun- 
tains of the coast or of the curling smoke of the forest 
fires; but the land was unknown to them, and the 
natives pursued their wandering life unmolested." 

Toward the end of the seventeenth century, 



*This stretch of water, as explained below, lies entirely outside 
of what is now known as San Francisco Bay. 



GALVEZ COMES TO LA PAZ. 93 

Father Salvatierra, head of the Jesuit missions in 
Lower California, fixed his eye on this region, and 
made plans for its occupation. In this the good 
Father Kiihn — a German from Bavaria, whom the 
Spaniards knew as " Quino," — seconded him. But 
these plans came to naught. The power of the 
Jesuit order was broken ; the charge of the missions 
in Lower California was given to the Dominicans, 
that of Upper California to the Franciscans, and to 
these and their associates the colonization of Cali- 
fornia is due. The Franciscans, it is said, " were 
the first white men who came to live and die in 
Alta California." 

And this is how it came about. One hundred 
and thirty years ago, the port of La Paz, in Baja 
California, lay baking in the sun. La Paz was 
then, as now, a little old town, with narrow, stony 
streets and adobe houses, standing amidst palms, 
and chaparral, and cactus. To this port of La 
Paz came, one eventful day, Don Jose de Galvez, 
envoy of the King of Spain. He brought orders to 
the Governor of California, Don Gaspar de Portola, 
that he should send a vessel in search of the ports 
of San Diego and of Monterey, on the supposed 
island, or peninsula, of Upper California, once 
found by Vizcaino, but lost for a century and a 



94 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

half. There they were to establish colonies and 
missions of the Holy Catholic Church. They were 
"to spread the Catholic religion," said the letter, 
" among a numerous heathen people, submerged in 
the obscure darkness of paganism, thereby to 
extend the dominion of the king, our lord, and to 
protect this peninsula of California from the ambi- 
tious designs of the foreign nations." 

" The land must be fertile for everything," says 
Galvez, " for it lies in the same latitude as Spain." 
So they carried all sorts of household and field 
utensils, and seeds of every useful plant that grew 
in Spain and Mexico — the olive and the pomegran- 
ate, the grape and the orange, not forgetting the 
garlic and the pepper. All these were placed in 
two small ships, the San Carlos, under the gallant 
Captain Vila, and the San Antonio, under Captain 
Perez. 

Padre Junipero Serra, chief apostle of these Span- 
ish missions, blessed the vessels and the flags, com- 
mending the whole enterprise to the Most Holy 
Patriarch San Jose, who was supposed to feel a 
special interest in this class of expeditions. His 
early flight into Egypt gave him a peculiar fond- 
ness for schemes involving foreign travel. Galvez 
exhorted the soldiers and sailors to respect the 






SEBRA LEAVES FOR SAN DIEGO, 95 

priests, and not to quarrel with each other. And 
thus they sailed away for San Diego in the winter 
of 1769. 

At the same time there was organized a land 
expedition, which should cross the sandy deserts 
and cactus-covered hills and join the vessels at San 
Diego. That there should be no risk of failure, 
Don Gaspar de Portola divided the land forces into 
two divisions, one led by himself, the other by Cap- 
tain Rivera. These two parties were to take differ- 
ent routes, so that if one were destroyed the other 
might accomplish the work. In front of each band 
were driven a hundred head of cattle, which were 
to colonize the new territories with their kind. 

Padre Serra went with the land expedition under 
the command of Portola. A barefooted friar, clad 
in a rough cloak confined by a rope at the waist, 
looks comfortable enough in the cool shade of an 
Italian cathedral; but the garb of the Franciscan 
order is ill-fitted to the peculiarities of the Califor- 
nia mesa. For the vegetation of Lower California 
makes up in bristliness what it lacks in luxuriance. 
Bush cactuses, so prickly that it makes one's eyes 
smart to look at them, and bunch cactuses, in wads 
of thorns as large as a bushel-basket, swarm every- 
where. Before the barefooted Padre had traveled 



96 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

far, so Miss Graham tells us in her charming little 
paper on the Spanish missions, he had made the 
acquaintance of many species of cactus. Horses in 
that country become lame sometimes, and people 
say that they are " cactus-legged." And soon Father 
Serra became " cactus-legged," too, so that he could 
neither walk nor ride a mule. The Indians were 
therefore obliged to carry him in a litter, for he 
would not go back to La Paz. 

But the Father felt great compassion for the 
Indians, who had enough to do to carry themselves. 
He prayed fervently for a time, and then, accord- 
ing to the chronicler of the expedition, " He called 
a mule-driver and said to him : ' Son, do you know 
some remedy for my foot and leg ? ' But the mule- 
driver answered, ' Father, what remedy can I know? 
Am I a surgeon ? I am a mule-driver, and have 
cured only the sore backs of beasts.' i Then con- 
sider me a beast/ said the Father, ' and this sore leg 
to be a sore back, and treat me as you would a mule.' 
Then said the muleteer, ' I will, Father, to please 
you/ and taking a small piece of tallow, he mashed 
it between two stones, mixing with it herbs that 
grew close by. Then heating it over the fire, he 
anointed the foot and leg, and left the plaster upon 
the sore. 'God wrought in such a manner/ wrote 






MIRACLES OF PADRE SERRA. 97 

the Padre Serra afterwards, 'that I slept all that 
night, and awoke so much relieved that I got up 
and said matins and prime, and afterwards mass, 
as if nothing had happened.' " 

But Father Serra did not show his faith by 
such simple miracles as these alone. In one of his 
revival meetings in Mexico, Bancroft tells us, he 
was beating himself with a chain in punishment for 
his imaginary offenses, when a man seized the 
chain and beat himself to death as a miserable 
sinner, in the presence of the people. At another 
time, sixty persons who neglected to attend his 
meetings were killed by an epidemic, and the 
disease went on, killing one after another, until the 
people had been scared into attention to their 
religious duties. Then, at a sign from Padre Serra, 
the plague abated. 

At one time the good Padre was well lodged and 
entertained in a very neat wayside cottage on a des- 
olate and solitary road. Later he learned that there 
was no such cottage in that region, and, we are told, 
he concluded that his entertainers were Joseph, 
Mary, and Jesus. 

Suffering greatly from thirst on one of his jour- 
neys, he said to his companions, who were com- 
plaining : " The best way to prevent thirst is to eat 



98 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

little and talk less." In a violent storm lie was 
perfectly calm, and the storm ceased instantly when 
a saint chosen by lot had been addressed in prayer. 
And so on ; for miracles like these are constant 
accompaniments of a mind wholly given over to 
religious enthusiasm. 

In due season, Padre Serra and his party arrived 
at San Diego, having followed the barren and 
dreary coast of Lower California for three hundred 
and sixty miles, often carrying water for great dis- 
tances, and as often impeded by winter rains. The 
boats and the other party were already there, and 
in the valley to the north of the mesa, on the banks 
of the little San Diego River, they founded the first 
mission in California. 

Within a fortnight of Serra's arrival at San 
Diego, a special land expedition set out in search 
of Vizcaino's lost port of Monterey. The expedi- 
tion, under Don Gaspar de Portola, was unhappy in 
some respects, though fortunate in others — un- 
happy, for after wandering about in the Coast 
Range for six months, the soldiers returned to San 
Diego, weary, half-starved, and disgusted, failing 
altogether, as they supposed, to find Monterey; 
fortunate, for it was their luck to discover the far 
more important Bay of San Francisco. It seems 



SEARCHING FOB MONTEREY BAY. 99 

evident, from the researches of John T. Doyle and 
others, that the company of Portola, from the hills 
above what is now Redwood City, were the first 
white men to behold the present Bay of San Fran- 
cisco. The journal of Miguel Costanzo, a civil 
engineer with Portola's command, is still preserved 
in the Sutro Library in San Francisco, and Cos- 
tanzo's map of the coast has been published. The 
diary of Father Crespi, who accompanied Portola, 
has also been printed. 

The little company went along the coast from 
San Diego northward, meeting many Indians on 
the way, and having various adventures with them. 
In the pretty valley which they named San Juan 
Capistrano, they found the Indian men dressed in 
suits of paint, the women in bearskins. On the 
site of the present town of Santa Ana, which they 
called Jesus de los Temblores, they met terrific 
earthquakes day and night. At Los Angeles, they 
celebrated the feast of Our Lady the Queen of the 
Angels (Nuestra Senora, Reina de Los Angeles), from 
which the valley took the name it still bears. 
They passed up the broad valley of San Fernando 
Rey, and crossed the mountains to the present vil- 
lage of Saugus. Thence they went down the Santa 
Clara River to San Buenaventura and Santa Bar- 



100 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

bara, their route coinciding with that of the present 
railroad. Above San Buenaventura they found 
Indians living in huts of sagebrush. At Santa 
Barbara, the Indians fed on excellent fish, but 
played the flute at night so persistently that Portola 
and his soldiers could not sleep for the music. 
They next passed Point Concepcion, and crossed 
the picturesque Santa Ynez and the fertile Arroyo 
Grande to the basin-shaped valley of San Luis 
Obispo, with its row of four conical mountains. 
At the last of these, Moro Rock, they reached the 
sea again. Above Piedras Blancas, where the 
rugged cliffs of the Santa Lucia crowd down to the 
ocean, they were blocked, and could go no farther. 
Crossing the mountains to the east, they followed 
Nacimiento Creek to below Paso Eobles, then went 
down the dusty valley of the Salinas, past the 
pastures on which the missions of San Miguel and 
Soledad were later planted. Below Soledad, they 
came again to the sea. They then went along 
the shore to the westward, past the present site of 
Monterey and Pacific Grove, and on to the Point 
of Pines itself, the southern border of the Bay of 
Monterey. Yet not one of them recognized the bay 
or any of the landmarks described by Vizcaino. At 
the Point of Pines, they were greatly disheartened, 







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VIZCAINO'S LOST BAY OF MONTEREY. 103 

because they could nowhere find a trace of the Bay 
of Monterey, or of any other bay which was shel- 
tered, or on which " the navies of the world could 
ride." Father Crespi celebrated here "the Feast of 
Our Father in the New World"; "or," he adds, 
" perhaps in a corner of the Old World, without 
any other church or choir than a desert." Portola 
offered to return, but Crespi said : " Let us continue 
our journey until we find the harbor of Monterey; 
if it be God's will, we will die fulfilling our duty to 
God and our country." So they crossed the Salinas 
again, and went northward along the shore of the 
very bay they had sought so long. Then they 
came to another river, where they killed a great 
eagle, whose wings spread nine feet and three 
inches. They called this river Pajaro, which 
means "bird," and devoutly added to it the name 
of Saint Anne, " Rio del Pajaro de Santa Ana." To 
the memory of this bird, the Pajaro River still re- 
mains dedicated. Farther on, they came to forests 
of redwood — "Palo Colorado," they called it. Crespi 
describes the trees "as very high, resembling cedars 
of Lebanon, but not of the same color; the leaves 
different, and the wood very brittle." 

At Santa Cruz, on the San Lorenzo River, they 
encamped, still bewailing their inability to find 



104 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

Monterey Bay. Going northward, along the coast 
past Pescadero and Halfmoon Bay, they saw the 
great headland of Point San Pedro. They called it 
Point Guardian Angel {Angel Custodio), and from 
its heights they could clearly see Point Eeyes and 
the chalk-white islands of the Farallones. These 
landmarks they recognized from the charts of 
Cabrera Bueno. Crespi says : " Scarce had we 
ascended the hill, when we perceived a vast bay 
formed by a great projection of land extending out 
to sea. We see six or seven islands, white, and 
differing in size. Following the coast toward the 
north, we can perceive a wide, deep cut, and north- 
west we see the opening of a bay which seems to 
go inside the land. At these signs, we come to 
recognize this harbor. It is that of our Father St. 
Francis, and that of Monterey we have left behind." 
" But some," he adds, " cannot believe yet that we 
have left behind us the harbor of Monterey, and 
that we are in that of San Francisco." 

But the " Harbor of San Francisco," as indicated 
by Cabrera Bueno, lay quite outside the Golden 
Gate, in the curve between Point San Pedro on the 
south, and Point Reyes on the north. The exist- 
ence of the Golden Gate, and the landlocked waters 
within, forming what is now known as San Fran- 



DISCOVERY OF SAN FBANCISOO BAY. 105 

cisco Bay, was not suspected by any of the early 
explorers. The high coast line, the rolling break- 
ers, and, perhaps, the banks of fog, had hidden the 
Golden Gate and the bay from Cabrillo, Drake, and 
Vizcaino alike. By chance a few members of Por- 
tola's otherwise unfortunate expedition discovered 
the glorious harbor. Some of the soldiers, led by 
an officer named Ortega, wandered out on the 
Sierra Morena, east of Point San Pedro. When 
they reached the summit and looked eastward, an 
entirely new prospect was spread out before them. 
From the foothills of these mountains, they saw a 
great arm of the ocean — "a mediterranean sea," 
they termed it, according to Mr. Doyle's account, 
" with a fair and extensive valley bordering it, rich 
and fertile — a paradise compared with the coun- 
try they had been passing over." They rushed 
back to the seashore, waving their hats and shout- 
ing. Then the whole party crossed over from Half- 
moon Bay into the valley of San Mateo Creek. 
Thence they turned to the south to go around the 
head of the bay, passing first over into the Canada 
del Raymundo, which skirts the foot of the moun- 
tain. Soon they came down the " Bear Gulch " to 
San Francisquito Creek, at the point where Sears- 
ville once stood, before the great Potola Reservoir 



103 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

covered its traces and destroyed its old landmark, 
the Portola Tavern. They entered what is now the 
University Campus, on which columns of ascend- 
ing smoke showed the presence of many camps 
of Indians. These Indians were not friendly. The 
expedition was out of provisions, and many of its 
members were sick from eating acorns. There 
seemed to be no limit to the extension of the Estero 
de San Francisco. At last, in despair, but against 
the wishes of Portola, they decided to return to San 
Diego. They encamped on San Francisquito Creek, 
and crossed the hills again to Halfmoon Bay. Then 
they went down the coast by Point Afio Nuevo, to 
Santa Cruz. At the Point of Pines they spent two 
weeks, searching again everywhere for the Bay of 
Monterey. 

At last they decided that Vizcaino's description 
must have been too highly colored, or else that the 
Bay of Monterey must, since his time, have been 
filled up with silt or destroyed by some earthquake. 
At any rate, the bay between Santa Cruz and the 
Point of Pines was the only Monterey they could find. 
According to Washburn, Vizcaino's account was far 
from a correct one. It was no fault of Portola and 
Crespi that, after spending a month on its shores, 
it never occurred to them to recognize the bay. 



AT THE POINT OF PINES. 107 

On the Point of Pines they erected a large wooden 
cross, and carved on it the words : " Dig at the foot 
of this and you will find a writing." 

According to Crespi this is what was written : 

" The overland expedition which left San Diego 
on the 14th of July, 1769, under the command of 
Don Gaspar de Portola, Governor of California, 
reached the channel of Santa Barbara on the 9th of 
August, and passed Point Concepcion on the 27th 
of the same month. It arrived at the Sierra de 
Santa Lucia on the 13th of September ; entered that 
range of mountains on the 17th of the same month, 
and emerged from it on the 1st of October; on the 
same day caught sight of Point Pinos, and the har- 
bors on its north and south sides, without discov- 
ing any indications or landmarks of the Bay of 
Monterey. We determined to push on farther in 
search of it, and on the 30th of October got sight of 
Point Reyes and the Farallones, at the Bay of San 
Francisco, which are seven in number. The expe- 
dition strove to reach Point Reyes, but was hin- 
dered by an immense arm of the sea, which, extend- 
ing to a great distance inland, compelled them to 
make an enormous circuit for that purpose. In 
consequence of this and other difficulties — the 
greatest of all being the absolute want of food, — 
the expedition was compelled to turn back, believ- 
ing that they must have passed the harbor of Mon- 
terey without discovering it. We started on return 



108 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

from the Bay of San Francisco on the 11th of No- 
vember; passed Point Ano Nuevo on the 19th, and 
reached this point and harbor of Pinos on the 27th 
of the same month. From that date until the pres- 
ent 9th of December, we have used every effort to 
find the Bay of Monterey, searching the coast, not- 
withstanding its ruggedness, far and wide, but in 
vain. At last, undeceived and despairing of finding 
it, after so many efforts, sufferings, and labors, and 
having left of all our provisions but fourteen small 
sacks of flour, we leave this place to-day for San 
Diego. I beg of Almighty God to guide us; and for 
you, traveler, who may read this, that He may 
guide you also, to the harbor of eternal salvation. 

" Done, in this harbor of Pinos, the 9th of Decem- 
ber, 1769. 

" If the commanders of the schooners, either the 
San Jose or the Principe, should reach this place 
within a few days after this date, on learning the 
accounts of this writing, and of the distressed con- 
dition of this expedition, we beseech them to follow 
the coast down closely toward San Diego, so that if 
we should be happy enough to catch sight of them, 
we may be able to apprize them by signals, flags, 
and firearms of the place where help and provi- 
sions may reach us." 

The next day the whole party started back to 
San Diego, making the journey fairly well, in spite 
of illness and lack of proper food. Though dis- 



BACK TO SAN DIEGO. 109 

appointed at Portola's failure, Serra had no idea 
of abandoning his project of founding a mission at 
Monterey. He made further preparations, and in 
about three months after Portola's return a newly 
organized expedition left San Diego. It consisted 
of two divisions, one by land, again commanded 
by Portola, and one by sea. This time the good 
Father wisely chose for himself to go by sea, and 
embarked on the San Antonio, which was the only 
ship he had in sailing condition. In about a 
month Portola's land party reached the Point of 
Pines, and there they found their cross still stand- 
ing. According to Laura Bride Powers, " great 
festoons of abalone-shells hung around its arms, 
with strings of fish and meat; feathers projected 
from the top, and bundles of arrows and sticks lay 
at its base. All this was to appease the stranger 
gods, and the Indians told them that at nightfall 
the terrible cross would stretch its white arms into 
space, and grow skyward higher and higher, till it 
would touch the stars, then it would burst into a 
blaze and glow throughout the night." 

Suddenly, as they came back through the forest 
from the Point of Pines, the thought came both to 
Crespi and Portola that here, after all, was the lost 
bay of Vizcaino. In this thought they ran over 



110 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

the landmarks of his description, and found all of 
them, though the harbor was less important than 
Vizcaino had believed. Since that day no one has 
doubted the existence of the Bay of Monterey. 

A week later, the San Antonio arrived, coming in 
sight around the Point of Pines, and was guided to its 
anchorage by bonfires along the beach. The party 
landed at the mouth of the little brook which flows 
down a rocky bank to the sea. On the 3rd of 
June, 1770, Father Serra and his associates " took 
possession of the land in the name of the King of 
Spain, hoisting the Spanish flag, pulling out some 
of the grass and throwing stones here and there, 
making formal entry of the proceedings." On the 
same day Serra began his mission by erecting a 
cross, hanging bells from a tree, and saying mass 
under the venerable oak where the Carmelite 
friars accompanying Vizcaino celebrated it in 1602. 
Around this landing grew up the town of Monterey. 

At a point just back from the shore, near the 
old live-oak tree under which the Padre rendered 
thanks, there has long stood a commemorative 
cross. On the hill above where the Padre stood 
looking out over the beautiful bay, there was placed 
one hundred and twenty years later, by the kind 
interest of a good woman, a noble statue, in gray 



THE STATUE OF PADRE SEBBA. Ill 

granite, representing Father Serra as he stepped 
from his boat. 

A fortress, or presidio, was built, and Monterey 
was made the capital of Alta California. But the 
mission was not located at the town. It was 
placed five miles farther south, where there were 
better pasturage and shelter. This was on a 
beautiful slope of the hill, flanked by a fertile val- 
ley opening out to the glittering sea, with the 
mountains of Santa Lucia in front and a great pine 
forest behind. The valley was named Carmelo, in 
honor of Vizcaino's Carmelite friars, and the mis- 
sion was named for San Carlos Borromeo. 

The present church of Monterey was not a mission 
church, but the chapel of the presidio, or barracks. 
It is now, according to Father Casanova, the oldest 
building in California. The old Mission of San Die- 
go, first founded of all, was burned by the Indians. 
It was afterwards rebuilt, but this took place after 
the chapel in Monterey was finished. The mission 
in Carmelo was not completed until later, as the 
Padre was obliged to secure authority from Mexi- 
co, that he might place it on the pasture lands of 
Carmelo, instead of the sand-hills of Monterey. 

When the discoveries of Portola and Ortega had 
been reported at San Diego, the shores of this inland 



112 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

sea of San Francisco seemed a most favorable sta- 
tion for another mission. Among the missions 
already dedicated to the saints, none had yet been 
found for the great father of the Franciscan order, 
St. Francis of Assisi, the beloved saint who could call 
the birds and who knew the speech of all animals. 
Before this, Father Serra had said to Governor 
Galvez, " And for our Father St. Francis is there to 
be no mission ? " And Galvez answered, " If St. 
Francis wants a mission, let him show his port, and 
we will found the mission there." 

And now the lost port of St. Francis was found, 
and it was the most beautiful of all, with the noblest 
of harbors, and the fairest of views toward the hills 
and the sea. So the new mission was called for 
him, the Mission San Francisco de los Dolores. 
For the Creek Dolores, the " brook of sorrows," 
flowed by the mission, and gave it part of its name. 
But Dolores stream is long since obliterated, form- 
ing part of the sewage system of San Francisco.* 

Thus was founded 

" that wondrous city, now apostate to the creed, 
O'er whose youthful walls the Padre saw the angel's golden 
reed." 



*The limits of San Francisco Bay, as now understood, were ascer- 
tained at the time of the founding of the mission, and the name was 
then formally adopted. 



"SUCH A NAME, IS IT LOVE OB PBAISEf" 113 

Meanwhile, following San Diego de Alcala and 
San Carlos Borromeo, a long series of missions was 
established, each one bearing the sonorous Spanish 
name of some saint or archangel, each in some 
beautiful sunny valley, half-hidden by oaks, and 
each a day's ride distant from the next. In the 
most charming nook of the Santa Lucia Mountains 
was built San Antonio de Padua; in the finest open 
pastures of the Coast Range, San Luis Obispo de 
Tolosa. In the rich valley, above the city of the 
Queen of the Angels, the beautiful church of San 
Gabriel Arcangel was dedicated to the leader of the 
hosts of heaven. Later, came the magnificent San 
Juan Capistrano, ruined by earthquakes in 1812. 
In its garden still stands the largest pepper-tree in 
Southern California. 

Then Santa Clara was built in the center of the 
fairest valley of the State. Next came San Buena- 
ventura and Santa Barbara, for the coast Indians of 
the south, and Santa Cruz, for those to the north of 
Monterey Bay. In the Salinas Valley, along the 
" Camino real" or royal highway, from the south 
to the north, were built Nuestra Senora de la Sole- 
dad and San Miguel Arcangel. A day's journey 
from Carmelo, in the valley of the Pajaro, arose 
San Juan Bautista. In the charming valley of 



114 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

Santa Ynez, still hidden from the tourist, a day's 
journey apart, were Santa Ynez and La Purisima 
Concepcion. East of the Bay of San Francisco, in 
a nook famous for vineyards, arose the Mission San 
Jose. 

In the broad, rocky pastures above Los Angeles, 
arose San Fernando Rey de Espaiia, while midway 
between San Diego and San Juan Capistrano was 
placed the stateliest of all the missions, dedicated, 
with its rich river valley, to the memory of San 
Luis Rey de Francia. Finally, to the north of San 
Francisco Bay, was built San Rafael, small, but 
charmingly situated, and then San Francisco So- 
lano, still farther on in Sonoma. This, the north- 
ernmost outpost of the saints, the last, weakest, and 
smallest, was first to die. It was founded in 1823, 
fifty years after the Mission San Diego. 

"Wherever you find in California a warm, sunny 
valley leading from the ocean back to the purple 
mountains, with a clear stream in its midst, and 
filled in summer with blue haze, around it steep 
slopes on which grapes may grow, you have found 
a mission valley, and these grapes are mission 
grapes. Somewhere in it you will see a cluster 
of large, wide-spreading pepper-trees, with delicate 
light-green foliage, or a grove of gnarled olives, 




> 

C .; 
> X 




MISSION VALLEYS AND MISSION GRAPES. 117 

looking like stunted willows, or, perhaps, a cluster 
of old pear-trees, or sometimes a tall palm. Near 
these you will find the ruins of old houses of 
adobe, wherein once dwelt the Indian neophytes. 
These houses are clustered around the walls, now 
almost in ruins, of the mission itself, which had 
its chapel, refectory, and baptistry, and in all its 
details it resembled closely a parish church of Italy 
or Spain. 

. The mission was usually laid out in the form of 
a hollow square, inclosed by a wall of adobe, twelve 
feet high, the whole inclosure being two or three 
hundred feet square. In the center of this square was 
a chapel, also of adobe; for the sun of California is 
kind to California's children, and a house of dried 
mud will withstand the scanty rains of a century. 
Some of these old chapels are still used, but the 
roofs of most of them have long since fallen in, and 
the ornaments have been removed to decorate some 
other building. The mission churches were built 
like mimic cathedrals, cathedrals of mud instead of 
marble, and, like their great models, each had its 
altar, with candles and crucifix, its vessels of holy 
water, and on the walls the inevitable paintings of 
heaven and purgatory. Their most charming fea- 
ture was the arched cloister, a feature which has 



118 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

been retained and beautified in the architecture of 
Leland Stanford Jr. University, at Palo Alto. 

Each church, too, had its little chime of bells, 
some of which were partly of gold or silver, as well 
as of brass. During the early enthusiasm, when 
the mission bells were cast, old heirlooms from 
Spain, rings, vases, and ancestral goblets from 
which had been " drunk the red wine of Tarragon," 
were thrown into the molten metal. And when 
these consecrated bells chimed out the Angelus 
at the sunset hour, with the sound of their voices 
all evil spirits were driven away, and no harm could 
come to man or beast or growing grain. 

"Bells of the past, whose long-forgotten music 
Still fills the wide expanse, 
Tingeing the sober twilight of the present 
With color of romance ; 

I hear you call, and see the sun descending 

On rock and wave and sand, 
As down the coast the mission voices blending, 

Girdle the heathen land. 

"' Within the circle of your incantation 
No blight nor mildew falls, 
Nor fierce unrest nor sordid low ambition 
Passes those airy walls. 

Borne on the swell of your long waves receding 

I touch the farther past. 
I see the dying glow of Spanish glory, 

The sunset dream and last. 



THE DYING GLOW OF SPANISH GLORY. 119 

"Your voices break and falter in the darkness, 
Break, falter, and are still, 
And veiled and mystic, like the Host descending, 
The sun sinks from the hill."* 

Around the church were built storehouses, work- 
shops, granaries, barracks for the soldiers, — in 
short, everything necessary for comfort and secu- 
rity. Each mission was at once fortress, refuge, 
church, and town. The little town grew in time 
more and more to resemble its fellows in old Spain. 
Bull-fights and other festivals were held in the 
plaza, or public square, in front of the presidio, or 
governor's house, and the long, low, whitewashed 
hacienda, or tavern. 

About the mission arose a great farm. Vines and 
olives were planted, and often long avenues of shade- 
trees. The level lands were sown to barley and 
oats; great herds of cattle and horses roamed over 
the hills. The sale of wine, and especially of hides, 
brought in each year an increasing revenue. The 
poor, struggling missions became rich. The com- 
manders kept up a dignity worthy of the represent- 
atives of the Spanish king, though often they had 
little enough to command. It is said that one of 
them, wishing to fire a salute in honor of some for- 
eign vessel, first sent on board to borrow powder. 

*Bret Harte, 



120 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

In the words of Bret Harte, with the comandante 
the days "slipped by in a delicious monotony of 
simple duties, unbroken by incident or interrup- 
tion. The regularly recurring feasts and saint's 
days, the half-yearly courier from San Diego, the 
rare transport ship, and rarer foreign vessels, were 
the mere details of his patriarchal life. If there 
was no achievement, there was certainly no failure. 
Abundant harvests and patient industry amply 
supplied the wants of the presidio and mission. 
Isolated from the family of nations, the wars which 
shook the world concerned them not so much as 
the last earthquake; the struggle that emancipated 
their sister colonies on the other side of the conti- 
nent had to them no suggestiveness. It was that 
glorious Indian summer of California history, that 
bland, indolent autumn of Spanish rule, so soon to 
be followed by the wintry storms of Mexican in- 
dependence and the reviving spring of American 
conquest." 

The Indians were usually gathered about the 
mission by force or by persuasion. Being baptized 
with holy water, they were taught to build houses, 
raise grain, and take care of cattle. In place of 
their savage rites, they learned to count their beads 
and say their prayers. They learned also to work, 



THE INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA. 123 

and were pious and generally contented. But these 
California Indians, at the best, were far inferior to 
those of the East. " When attached to the mis- 
sion," Mr. Soule says, " they were an industrious, 
contented, and numerous class, though, indeed, in 
intelligence and manly spirit they were little better 
than the beasts, after all." 

The Jesuit Father, Venegas, remarks, discour- 
agingly : " It is not easy for Europeans who were 
never out of their own country to conceive an ade- 
quate idea of these people. Even in the least fre- 
quented quarters of the globe there is not a nation 
so stupid, of such contracted ideas, and weak, both 
in body and in mind, as the unhappy Californians. 
Their characteristics are stupidity and insensibility, 
want of knowledge and reflection, inconstancy, im- 
petuosit}', and blindness of appetite, excessive sloth, 
abhorrence of all fatigue of every kind, however 
trifling or brutal, — in fine, a most wretched want of 
everything which constitutes the real man and 
makes him rational, inventive, tractable, and useful 
to himself and others." All of which goes to show 
that climate is not everything, and that contact 
with other minds and other people, with the sifting 
that rigorous conditions enforce, may outweigh all 
the advantages of the fairest climate. The highest 



124 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADBE. 

development comes with the fewest barriers to 
migration, to competition, and to the spread of 
ideas. 

The destruction of the missions and the advent of 
our Anglo-Saxon freedom has been for the Indian 
and his kind only loss and wrong. He has become 
an alien and tramp, with his half-brother, the 
despised Greaser. 

The mission fathers left no place for idleness on 
the part of their converts, or " neophytes " ; nor did 
they make much provision for the development of 
the individual. The Indians were to work, and to 
work hard and steadily, for the glory of the church 
and the prosperity of the nation. In return they 
were insured from all harm in this world and in the 
world to come. The rule of the Padre was often 
severe, sometimes cruel, but not demoralizing, and 
the Indians reached a higher grade of industry 
and civilization than the same race has attained 
otherwise before or since. 

Believing that the use of the rod was necessary 
to the Indians' salvation, the Padres were in no 
danger of sparing it, and thus spoiling their chil- 
dren. The good Father Serra would as "soon have 
doubted his right to breathe as his right to flog 
the Indian converts " ; and meek and quiet though 



THE STUBBORNNESS OF PAGANISM. 125 

these converts usually were, there were not wanting 
times when they turned about in sullen resistance. 
The annals of some of the missions show a series of 
events that may well have discouraged the most 
enthusiastic of missionaries. The unconverted 
Indians, or "gentiles," of Southern California were 
heathens indeed, and they made repeated attacks 
upon the missions by day, or stole their stock or 
burned their houses by night. Volleys of arrows 
not unfrequently greeted the priests on their return 
from morning mass. 

In San Diego, faith in the power of gunpowder to 
hurt long preceded any belief in the power of the 
cross to save. For a whole year after the mission 
was founded, not a convert was made. The sole 
San Diego Indian in Father Serra's service was a 
hired interpreter, who did not have a particle of 
reverence for his employer's work. " In all these 
missionary annals of the Northwest," says Bancroft, 
"there is no other instance where paganism 
remained so long stubborn as in San Diego." 

And the converts made at such cost of threats 
and promises were always ready to backslide. It 
was hard to convert any unless they subjugated all. 
The influence of the many outside would often 
stampede the few within the fold. 



126 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

In one of the numerous uprisings at San Diego 
the Fathers were victorious over the Indians ; the 
warriors were flogged, and thus converted, and 
their four chiefs were condemned to death. The 
sentence of death, according to Bancroft, read as 
follows : 

" Deeming it useful to the service of God, the king, 
and the public good, I sentence them to a violent 
death by musket shots, on the 11th of April, at 9 
a.m., the troops to be present at the execution, under 
arms ; and also all the Christian rancherias subject 
to the San Diego Mission, that they may be warned 
to act righteously." 

To the priests who were to assist at the last sacra- 
ment, the following grim directions was given : 

" You will co-operate for the good of their souls, 
in the understanding that if they do not accept the 
salutary waters of holy baptism, they die on Satur- 
day morning ; and if they do accept, they die all the 
same." 

The character of the first great mission chief, 
Junipero Serra, is thus summed up by Bancroft : 

" All his energy and enthusiasm were directed to 
the performance of his missionary duties as out- 
lined in the regulations of his order and the instruc- 
tion of his superiors. Limping from mission to 
mission, with a lame foot that must never be cured, 



JTJNJPERO SEBBA. 127 

fasting much and passing sleepless nights, depriv- 
ing himself of comfortable clothing and nutritious 
food, he felt that he was imitating the saints and 
martyrs who were the ideals of his sickly boyhood, 
and in recompense of abstinence he was happy. 
He was kind-hearted and charitable to all, but most 
strict in his enforcement of religious duties. It 
never occurred to him to doubt his absolute right 
to flog his neophytes for any slight negligence in 
matters of the faith. His holy desires trembled 
within him like earthquake throbs. In his eyes 
there was but one object worth living for — the per- 
formance of religious duty; and but one way to 
accomplish that object — a strict and literal com- 
pliance with Franciscan rules. He could never 
understand that there was anything beyond the 
narrow field of his vision. He could apply re- 
ligious enthusiasm to practical affairs. Because 
he was a grand missionary, he was none the less 
a money-maker and civilizer; but money-making 
and civilizing were adjuncts only to mission work, 
and all not for his glory, but for the glory of God." 

After Junipero Serra came a saner and wiser, if 
not a better, man, the Padre Fermin Lasuen. I 
need not go into details in regard to him or his life. 
No miracles followed his path, and no saint made 
him the object of spectacular intervention; but 
his gentle earnestness counted for more in the 



128 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

development of Old California than that of any- 
other man. Of Lasuen, Bancroft says: 

" In him were united the qualities that make up 
the ideal Padre, without taint of hypocrisy or cant. 
He was a frank, kind-hearted old man, who made 
friends of all he met. Of his fervent piety there 
are abundant proofs, and his piety and humility 
were of an agreeable type, unobtrusive, and blended 
with common sense. He overcame obstacles in the 
way of duty, but he created no obstacles for the 
mere sake of surmounting them. He was not a 
man to limp through life on a sore leg if a cure 
could be found. . . . First among the Califor- 
nian prelates let us ever rank Fermin de Lasuen, as 
a friar who rose above his environment and lived 
many years in advance of his times." 

Thirteen years after the serene founding of the 
Mission San Francisco came the first shock to the 
community, thus noticed in a letter from the gov- 
ernor of the territory to the comandante at San 
Francisco : 

" Whenever there may arrive at the Port of San 
Francisco a ship named the Columbia, said to 
belong to General Washington, of the American 
States, commanded by John Kendrick, which sailed 
from Boston in September, 1787, bound on a voyage 
of discovery to the Russian establishments on the 
northern coast of this peninsula, y r ou will cause the 



THE RUSSIANS. 129 

said vessel to be examined with caution and deli- 
cacy, using for this purpose a small boat which you 
have in your possession." 

Afterwards another enemy, almost as dangerous 
as the Yankee, appeared in the shape of Russians 
from Alaska. They brought down a colony of 
Kodiak Indians, or Aleuts, and established them- 
selves at Fort Ross, north of San Francisco. The 
Spaniards then founded the missions of San Rafael 
and Solano in front of the Russians, to head them 
off, as the priest makes the sign of the cross to ward 
off Satan. Trading with the Russians was forbid- 
den, but, nevertheless, the Russian vessels, on one 
pretext or another, made repeated visits to the Bay 
of San Francisco. The Spaniards had no boats in 
the bay, and could not prevent the ingress of the 
Russian and American traders. One of the singu- 
lar facts in connection with the missions is that the 
Padres made no use of the sea, and the missions 
usually kept no boats at all, and so the Spanish 
officials were forced to receive in friendliness many 
encroachments which they were powerless to pre- 
vent. 

In 1842, as the seals grew scarce around Bodegas 
Head, the Russians, to the great satisfaction of the 
Spaniards, disappeared as suddenly as they came. 



130 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

The joy of the missions was short-lived, for seven 
years later gold was discovered, California was 
ceded to the United States, and the most remarka- 
ble invasion known in history followed- Over the 
mountains, across the plains, by the Isthmus, and 
by the Horn they came, that wonderful procession 
which Bret Harte has made so familiar to us — 
Truthful James, Tennessee's Partner, Jack Hamlin, 
John Oakhurst, Flynn of Virginia, Abner Dean of 
Angels, Brown of Calaveras, Yuba Bill, Sand}^ 
McGee, the Scheezicks, the Man of No Account, 
and all the rest. And the California of the gam- 
bler and the gold-seeker succeeds the California 
of the Padre. 

Numerous causes had meanwhile contributed to 
the decline of the Spanish missions. They had been 
supported at first by a Pious Fund, obtained by 
subscriptions in Mexico and Spain. After the sep- 
aration of these two countries, this fund was lost, 
its interest being regularly embezzled by Mexican 
officials, and, finally, the principal, it is said, was 
taken in one lump by the President, Santa Ana. 
Still the missions were able to hold their own until 
the Mexican Government removed the Indians 
from the control of the Padres, for the benefit, I 
suppose, of the " Indian ring." The secular control 



DECLINE OF THE MISSIONS. 131 

of the native tribes was, in Mexican hands, an utter 
failure. The Indians, now no longer compelled to 
work, no longer well fed and comfortably clothed, 
were scattered about the country as paupers and 
tramps. The missions, after repeated interferences 
of this sort, fell into a rapid decline, and at the time 
that California was ceded to the United States, not 
one of them was in successful operation. A few of 
the churches are still partly occupied, as at San Luis 
Obispo, San Capistrano, and San Miguel. The Mis- 
sion of Santa Barbara is still intact, and has yet its 
little bands of monks. A few, like San Carlos, have 
been partially saved or partially restored, thanks to 
the loving interest of Father Casanova and others ; 
but the Indians are gone, and neither wealth nor 
influence remains with the missions. Most of them 
are crumbling ruins, and have already taken their 
place as curiosities and relics of the past. Some of 
them, as the noble San Antonio de Padua and the 
stately San Luis Key, are exquisitely beautiful, even 
in ruins. Of others, as San Rafael, not a trace 
remains, and its spot can be kept green only in 
memory. It is said that at San Antonio, a mission 
once numbering fourteen hundred souls, and rear- 
ing the finest horses in California, the last priest 
lived all alone for years, and supported himself by 



132 THE CALIFORNIA OF THE PADRE. 

raising geese and selling the tiles from the mission 
roof. When he died, ten years ago, no one was left 
to care for his beloved mission, which is rapidly 
falling into utter decay. 

So faded away the California of the Padre, and 
left no stain on the pages of our history. 



THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 



THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

IN a cleft of the high Alps stands the Hospice of 
the Great Saint Bernard. Its tall, cold, stone 
buildings are half-buried in ice in the winter, while 
even in summer the winds, dense with snow, shriek 
and howl as they make their way through the notch 
in the mountain. Its little lake, cold and dark, frozen 
solid in winter, is covered with cakes of floating ice 
under the sky of July. The scanty grass around 
it forms a thick, low turf, which is studded with 
bodiless blue gentians, primroses, and other Alpine 
flowers. Overhanging the lake are the frost-bitten 
crags of the Mountain of Death; and the other 
mountains about, though less dismally named, 
are not more cheerful to the traveler. Along the 
lake margin winds the narrow bridle-path, which 
follows rushing rivulets in zigzags down steep flower- 
carpeted slopes to the pine woods of Saint Remy, 
far below. Among the pines the path widens to a 
wagon-road, whence it descends through green pas- 
tures, purple with autumnal crocus, past beggarly 
villages, whose houses crowd together, like fright- 

137 



138 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

ened cattle in a herd, through beech woods, vine- 
yards, and grain-fields, till at last it comes to its 
rest amid the high stone walls of the old city of 
Aosta, named for Augustus Csesar. Above Aosta 
are the sources of the river Po, one of the chief of 
these being the Dora Baltea, in a deep gorge half-hid 
by chestnut-trees. It is twenty miles from the lake 
to the river — twenty miles of wild mountain in- 
cline — twenty miles from Switzerland to Italy, 
from the eternal snows and faint-colored flowers of 
the frigid zone, to the dust, and glare of the torrid. 

The Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard stands 
thus in a narrow mountain notch, with only room 
for itself and its lake, while above it, on either 
side, are jagged heights dashed with snow-banks, 
their summits frosted with eternal ice. 

It is a large stone building, three stories high, 
beside the two attic floors of the steep, sloping roof. 
A great square house of cold, gray stone, as unat- 
tractive as a barn or a woolen-mill, plain, cold, and 
solid. At one end of the main building is a stone 
addition precisely like the building itself. On the 
other side of the bridle-path is an outbuilding — a 
tall stone shed, " the Hotel of Saint Louis," three 
stories high, as plain and uncompromising as the 
Hospice is. The front door of the main building 



THE DOGS OF SAINT BERNARD. 141 

is on the side away from the lake. From this 
door down the north side of the mountain the path 
descends steeply from the crest of the Pennine Alps 
to the valley of the Rhone, even more swiftly than 
the path on the south side drops downward to the 
valley of the Po. 

As one approaches the Hospice he is met by a 
noisy band of great dogs, yellow and white, with 
the loudest of bass voices, barking incessantly, eager 
to pull you out of the snow, and finding that you 
do not need this sort of rescue, apparently equally 
eager to tear you to pieces for having deceived 
them. Classical names these dogs still bear — names 
worthy of the mountain long sacred to Jupiter, on 
which the Hospice is built — Jupitere, Junon, Mars, 
Vulcan, Pluton, the inevitable Leon, and the in- 
domitable Turc, and all have for the traveler such 
a greeting as only a band of big, idle dogs can give. 
These dogs are not so large nor so well kept as the 
Saint Bernard dogs we see in American cities, but 
they have the same great head, huge feet and legs, 
and the same intelligent eye, as if they were capa- 
ble of doing anything if they would only stop bark- 
ing long enough to think of something else. 

The inside of the house corresponds to its outer 
appearance. Thick, heavy triple doors admit you 



142 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

to a cold hall floored with stone. Adjoining this is 
a parlor, likewise floored with the coldest of stone, 
and this parlor is used as the dining-room and 
waiting-room for travelers. Its walls are hung with 
pictures, many of them valuable works of art, the 
gifts of former guests, while its chilly air is scantily 
warmed by a small fireplace, on which whoever 
will may throw pine boughs and fragments of the 
spongy wood of the fir. By this fire the guests take 
their turn in getting partly warmed, then pass 
away to shiver in the outer wastes of the room. 

In this room the travelers are served with plain 
repasts, princes and peasants alike, coarse bread, 
red wine, coffee, and boiled meat; everything about 
the table neat and clean, but with no pretense at 
pampering the appetite. You take whatever you 
please without money and without price. Should 
you care to pay your way, or care to help on the 
work of the Hospice, you can leave your mite, be it 
large or small, in a box near the door of the chapel. 
The guest-rooms are plain but comfortable — a few 
religious pictures on the walls; tall, old-fashioned 
beasteads, with abundant feather-beds and warm 
blankets. For one night only all persons who come 
are welcome. The next day all alike, unless sick 
or crippled, must pass on. 



s 







THE MONKS OF THE HOSPICE. 145 

There are about a dozen monks in the Hospice 
now, all of them young men, devoted to their work, 
and some of them at least intelligent and gener- 
ously educated. The hard climate and the expos- 
ure of winter breaks down their health before they 
are old. When they become unable to carry on 
the duties of the Hospice, they are sent down the 
mountains to Martigny, while others come up to 
take their places. There are beautiful days in the 
summer-time, but no season of the year is free from 
severity. Even in July and August the ground is 
half the time white with snow. Terrible blasts 
sweep through the mountains ; for the commonest 
summer shower in the valleys below is, in these 
heights, a raging snow-storm, and its snow-laden 
winds are never faced with impunity. 

We visited the Hospice in July, 1890. We drove 
from Aosta up to Saint Remy, a little village crowded 
in on the side of the mountain, where the pine- 
trees cease. The light rain which followed us out 
from Saint Remy changed to snow as we came up 
the rocky slopes. By the time we reached the Hos- 
pice it became a blinding sleet. The ground was 
only whitened, so that the dogs who came barking 
to meet us had no need to dig us out from the drifts. 
In this they seemed disappointed, and barked again, 



146 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

Once inside the walls, one cared not to go out. 
Many travelers came up the mountain that day. 
Among them were a man and his wife, Italian peas- 
ants, who had been over the mountains to spend a 
day or two with friends in some village on the 
Swiss side, and were now returning home. Man 
and woman were dressed in their peasants' best, 
and with them was a little girl, some four years old. 
The child carried a toy horse in her hands, the gift 
of some friend below. As they toiled up the steep 
path in the blinding snow, all of them thinly clad 
and dressed only for summer, they seemed chilled 
through and through, while the child was almost 
frozen. The monks came out to meet them, took 
the child in their arms, and brought her and her 
parents to the fire, covered her shoulders with a 
warm shawl, and, after feeding them, sent them 
down the mountain to their home in the valley, 
warmed and filled. This was a simple act, the 
easiest of all their many duties, but it was a very 
touching one. Such duties make up the simple 
round of their lives. 

In the storms of winter the work of the Hospice 
takes a sterner cast. From November to May the 
gales are incessant. The snow piles up in billows, 
and in the whirling clouds all traces of human oc- 




7 il 



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CROSSING THE SAINT BERNARD. 149 

cupation are obliterated. There are many peasants 
and workingmen who go forth from Italy into 
Switzerland and France, and who wish to return 
home when their summer labors are over. To these 
the pass of the Great Saint Bernard is the only route 
which they can afford. The long railway rides and 
the great distances of the Simplon and the Saint 
Gotthard would mean the using up of their scanty 
earnings. If they go home at all, they must trust 
their lives to the storms and the monks, and take 
the path which leads by the Hospice. So they come 
over day after day, the winter long. No matter how 
great the storm, the dogs are on the watch. In the 
last winter, of the many who came, not one was lost. 
This is the Hospice as it stands to-day. I come 
next to tell its story and the story of its founder. 
I tell it, in the most part, from a little volume in 
French, which some modest and nameless monk 
of the Hospice has compiled from the old Latin 
records of the monks who have gone before him. 
This volume he has printed, as he says, " for the 
use of the faithful in the parishes which lie next 
the Alps, and which, in his time, the good Saint 
Bernard * passed through." This story I must tell 



* St. Bernard de Menthon must not be confounded with Bernard de 
Clairvaux, born in 1091, the preacher of the Crusades. 



150 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN, 

in his own spirit, in some degree at least, else 1 
should have no right to tell it at all. 

In the tenth century, he informs us, the dark 
ages of Europe could scarcely have been darker. 
Weak and wicked kings, the dregs of the worn- 
out blood of Charlemagne, misruled France, while 
along the northern coast the Normans robbed and 
plundered at their will. Even the church had her 
share of crimes and scandals. In this dark time, 
says the chronicle, " God, who had promised to be 
with His own to the end of the centuries, did not 
fail to raise up in that darkness great saints who 
should teach the people to lift their eyes toward 
heaven; to rise above afflictions; not to take the 
form of the world for a permanent habitation, and 
to suffer its pains with patience, in the prospect of 
eternity." 

It happened that in the days of King Raoul, in 
the Castle of Menthon, on the north bank of the 
lake of Annecy, in Savoy, in the year 923, Bernard 
de Menthon was born. His father was the Baron 
Richard, famous among the noblemen of the time, 
while his mother, the Lady Bernoline, was illustri- 
ous for virtues. The young Bernard was a fair 
child, and his history, as seen from the perspective 
of his monkish historian, shows that even in his 



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THE STOBY OF THE GOOD MONK. 153 

earliest youth he was predestined for saintship. 
Even before he could walk, the little child would 
join his hands in the attitude of supplication, and 
murmur words which might have been prayers. 
While still very young, he brought in a book one 
day and asked his mother to teach him to read, and 
when she would not, or could not, he wept, for the 
books in which even then he delighted were the 
prayer-books of the church. 

He grew up bright and beautiful, and his father 
was proud of him, and determined that he should 
take his part in public life. But Bernard's thoughts 
ran in other channels. He spent his moments in 
copying psalms, and in writing down the words of 
divine service which he heard. Even in his seventh 
year he began to practice austerities and self-casti- 
gation, which he kept up through his life. He 
chose for his model Saint Nicholas, the saint who 
through the ages has been kind to children. Him 
he resolved to imitate, and to walk always in his 
steps. 

The University of Paris had been founded by 
Charlemagne more than a century before, and this 
university was then the Mecca of all ambitious 
youth. To the University of Paris his father 
decided to send him. But his mother feared the 



154 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

influence of the gay capital, and wished to keep 
Bernard by her side. But the boy said, "Virtue 
has too deep a root in my heart, mother, for the air 
of Paris to tarnish it. I will bring back more of 
science, but not less of purity." And to Paris he 
went. Here he studied law, to please his father, 
and theology, to please himself. "As Tobias lived 
faithful in Nineveh," so the chronicle says, " thus 
lived Bernard in Paris." In the midst of snares 
unnumbered, he only redoubled his austerities — 
"in sanctitate persistens, studiosus valde" so the record 
says. 

His thoughts ran on the misery of humanity, 
which he measured by the abasement to which 
Christ had submitted in order to effect its redemp- 
tion. A great influence in his life came from Ger- 
main, his tutor, a man who had lived the life of a 
scholar in the world, and who had at last with- 
drawn to sanctity and prayer. Although Bernard 
knew that his father expected a brilliant future 
for him, and that he hoped to effect for him a mar- 
riage in some family of the great of those days, 
yet he took upon himself the vow of celibacy. 
"God lives in virgin souls," he said. There is a 
record of an argument with Germain, in which his 
tutor tries to test the strength of his purpose. Ger- 



GERMAIN AND BERNARD. 157 

main tells him that even in a monastery evil can- 
not be excluded, and that many even of the most 
austere monks live lives of petty jealousy and 
ignoble ambition. "There are many," Germain 
says, " who are saved in the struggle of the world 
who would be shipwrecked in a monastery." But 
Bernard is steadfast in his choice. "Happy are 
those who have chosen to dwell in God's court, 
and to sleep on His estate." Thus day and night 
he struggles against all temptations of worldly 
glory or pleasure. 

Then his father calls him home; and when he 
has returned to Annecy, Bernard finds that every 
preparation has been made for his approaching 
wedding with the daughter of the great Lord of 
Miolans. " Sponsa pulchra" beautiful bride, this 
young woman was, according to the record, and 
doubtless this was true. The attitude of Bernard 
toward this marriage his father and mother could 
not understand. He held back constantly, and 
urged all sorts of objections to its immediate con- 
summation, but on no ground which seemed to 
them reasonable. So the wedding-day was set. 
The house was full of guests. Every gate and door 
of the castle was crowded by armed retainers, and 
there seemed to be no escape. Bernard retired to 



158 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

his own room, and in the oldest manuscripts are 
given the words of his prayer : 

" My adorable Creator, Thou who with thy celes- 
tial light enlightened those who invoke with faith 
and confidence, and Thou my Jesus, Divine Re- 
deemer of men and Saviour of souls, lend a favor- 
able ear to my humble prayer; spread on thy 
servant the treasures of your infinite merc} r . I 
know that Thou never abandonest those who place 
in you their hope ; deliver me, I supplicate Thee, 
from the snares which the world have offered me. 
Break these nets in which the world tries to take 
me; permit not that the enemy prevail over thy 
servant, that adulation may enfeeble my heart. I 
abandon myself entirely to Thee. I throw myself 
into the arms of thy infinite mercy, hoping that 
Thou wilt save me, and wilt reject not my demand." 

Then to the good Saint Nicholas: 

"Amiable shepherd, faithful guide, holy priest, 
thou who art my protector and my refuge, together 
with God, and His holy mother, the happy Virgin 
Mary, obtain me, I pray thee, by thy merits, the 
grace of triumph over the obstacles the world op- 
poses to my vow of consecrating myself to God 
without reserve — in return for the property, the 
pleasures, and honors here below, of which I aban- 
don my part, obtain me spiritual good all the 
course of my life, and eternal happiness after my 
death." 



BERNARD AND SAINT NICHOLAS. 159 

Then Bernard retired to sleep, and in a dream 
Saint Nicholas stood before him and uttered these 
words : 

" Bernard, servant of God the Lord, who never 
betrays those who put their confidence in Him, 
calls thee to follow Him. An immortal crown 
is reserved for thee. Leave at once thy father's 
house and go to Aosta. There in the cathedral 
thou shalt meet an old man called Pierre. He will 
welcome thee; thou shalt live with him, and he 
shall teach thee the road thou should traverse. For 
my part, I shall be thy protector, and will not for 
an instant abandon thee." 

Then Bernard opened his eyes and the vision 
had disappeared. He was overcome with joy. His 
resolution was taken. Though he knew no way 
out of the castle, nor from the bedroom in the 
tower, in which he had been locked by his thought- 
ful father, yet he was ready to go. 

Taking up a pen, he wrote to his father this 
letter : 

"Very dear parents, rejoice with me that the 
Lord calls me to His service. I follow Him to 
arrive sooner at the port of salvation, the sole 
object of my vows. Do not worry about me, nor 
take the trouble to seek me. I renounce the mar- 
riage, which was ever against my will. I renounce 
all that concerns the world. All my desires turn 



160 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

toward heaven, whither I would arrive. I take the 
road this minute. Bernard de Menthon." 

Laying the letter on the table, he soon found 
himself on the way outside the castle grounds, and 
along this path he hurried, over the mountain 
passes, toward the city of Aosta. So say the oldest 
manuscripts ; but in the later stories the details are 
more fully described. From these it would appear 
that Bernard leaped from the window eighteen or 
twenty feet, his naked feet striking on a bare rock. 
On he ran through the night; on over dark and 
lonely paths in a country still uninhabited; over 
the stony fields and wild watercourses of the 
Graian Alps, and when the morning dawned he 
found himself in the city of Aosta, a hundred 
miles from Annecy. 

In an old painting the manner of his escape is 
shown in detail. As he drops from the window he 
is supported by Saint Nicholas on the one side, and 
an angel on the other, and underneath the painting 
is the legend " Emporte par Miracle" It is said, 
too, that in former times the prints of his hands 
on the stone window-sill, and of his naked feet on 
the rock below, were both plainly visible. Eight 
hundred years later the good Father Pierre Verre 
celebrated mass in the old room in which Bernard 



THE LADY OF MIOLANS. 161 

was confined ; and he reports at that time there was 
both on the window-sill and on the rock below 
only the merest trace of the imprints left by Ber- 
nard. One could not then " even be sure that they 
were made by hand or foot." But the chronicle 
wisely says: " Time, in effacing these marks and 
rendering them doubtful, has never effaced the 
tradition of the fact among the people of Annecy." 
In the morning, consternation reigned within the 
castle. The Lord of Menthon was filled with dis- 
gust, shame, and confusion. The Lord of Miolans 
thought that he and his daughter were the victims 
of a trick, and he would take no explanation or 
excuse. Only the sword might efface the stain upon 
his honor. The marriage feast would have ended 
in a scene of blood were it not, according to the 
chronicle, that " God, always admirable in His 
saints," sent as an angel of peace the very person 
who had been most cruelly wronged. The Lady of 
Miolans, " sponsa pulchra " beyond a doubt, took 
up the cause of her delinquent bridegroom, whom 
God had called, she said, to take some nobler part 
When peace had been made, she followed his 
example, taking the veil in a neighboring convent, 
where, after many years of virtuous living, she died, 
full of days and full of merits. " Sponsa ipsius" so 



162 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

the record says, " in qua sancte et religiose dies suos 
clausit "; a bride who in sanctity and religious days 
closed her life. 

Meanwhile, beyond the Graian Alps and beyond 
the reach of his father's information, Bernard was 
safe. In Aosta he was kindly received by Pierre, 
the Archdeacon. He entered into the service of the 
church, and there, in spite of his humility and his 
self-abasement, he won the favor of all with whom 
he had to deal. " God wills," the chronicle says, 
" that His ministers should shine by their sanctity 
and their science." " Saint Paul commends prudence, 
gravity, modesty, unselfishness, and hospitality," 
and to these precepts Bernard was ever faithful. 
He lived in the simplest way, like a hermit in his 
personal relations, but never out of the life of the 
world. He was not a man eager to save his own 
soul only, but the bodies and souls of his neighbors. 
Pie dressed in the plainest garb. He drank from a 
rude wooden cup. Wine he never touched, and 
water but rarely. The juice of bitter herbs was his 
beverage, and by every means possible he strove to 
reduce his body to servitude. When he came, years 
later, to his deathbed, it was his sole regret that it 
was a bed where he was to die, instead of the bare 
boards on which he was wont to sleep. 



BERNARD AT AOSTA. 163 

His fame as a preacher spread far and wide. 
There are many traditions of his eloquence, and 
the memory of his words was fondly cherished 
wherever his sweet, rich voice was heard. " From 
the mountains of Savoy to Milan and Turin, and 
even to the Lake of Geneva," says the chronicle, 
" his memory was dear." So, in due time, after the 
death of Pierre, Bernard was made Archdeacon of 
Aosta. 

In these times the high Alps were filled with 
Saracen brigands and other heathen freebooters, 
who celebrated in the mountain fastnesses their 
monstrous rites. In the mountains above Aosta the 
god Pen had long been worshiped ; the word pen in 
Celtic meaning the highest. Later, Julius Csesar 
conquered these wild tribes, and imposed upon them 
the religion of the Roman Empire. A statue of 
Jupiter (" Jove optimo maximo" ) was set up in the 
mountain in the place of the idol Pen. Afterwards, 
by way of compromise, the Romans permitted the 
two to become one, and the people worshiped Jovis 
Pennius (Jupiter Pen), the great god of the highest 
mountains. A statue of Jupiter Pen was set up 
by the side of the lake in the great pass of the 
mountain ; and from Jupiter Pen these mountains 
took the name of Pennine Alps, which they bear to 



164 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITEB PEN. 

this day. The pass itself was called Mons Jo vis, the 
Mountain of Jove, and this, in due time, became 
shortened to Mont Joux. Through this pass of 
Mont Joux the armies of every nation have marched, 
the heroes of every age, from Saint Peter, who, the 
legend says, came over in the year 57, down to 
Napoleon, who passed nearly eighteen centuries 
later, on a much less worthy errand. The Hotel 
" Dejeuner de Napoleon," in the little village of 
" Bourg Saint Pierre," recalls in its name the story 
of both these visits. 

In the earliest days a refuge hut was built by the 
side of the statue of Jupiter Pen. In the early pil- 
grimages to Rome this became a place of some im- 
portance. Later on, marauding armies of Goths, 
Saracens, and Hungarians, successively passing 
through, destroyed this refuge. In the days of Ber- 
nard the pass was filled with a horde of brigands, 
French, Italians, Saracens, and Jews, who had cast 
aside all religious faith of their fathers, and had 
re-established the worship of the demon in the tem- 
ple of Jupiter Pen. 

The old manuscripts tell us that in the middle 
of the tenth century the demons were in full 
sway on these mountains ; that through the mouth 
of the statue of Jupiter the worst of lies and bias- 



THE EYE OF JOVE. 165 

phemies were spoken to those who came to con- 
sult it. These worshipers of strange old gods lived 
by plunder, and exacted toll of all who came 
through the pass. The same conditions existed 
on the Graian Alps to the southward. On one 
of these mountain passes, some fifty miles from 
Mont Joux, there lived a rich man named Poly- 
carpe. He, too, did homage to Jupiter, and on the 
summit of a tall column which he built in the 
pass he had placed a splendid diamond, which he 
called the " Eye of Jove." People came from great 
distances to be healed by its magic glance, and the 
mountain on which he dwelt was the mountain of 
the Columna Jovis. This became changed, in time, 
to Colonne Joux, the Mountain of the Column of 
Jove. And the demons of these two heights, the 
Mountain of Jove and the Column of Jove, sent 
down their baleful call of defiance to the valley over 
which Bernard ruled as Archdeacon of Aosta. 

It came to pass that a troop of ten French travel- 
ers crossed over the pass of Mont Joux. In the pass 
they were attacked by marauders, and one of their 
number was carried away captive. When they 
came down to Aosta, Bernard, the Archdeacon, 
fearlessly offered to go back with them to attack the 
giant of the mountain, to rescue their friend, and to 



166 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN, 

replace the standard of the cross over the altar of 
the demon. 

That night, so says the old chronicle, Saint Nich- 
olas appeared to him in the garb of a pilgrim and 
said : " Bernard, let us attack these mountains. We 
shall put the demon to flight. We shall overturn 
this statue of Jupiter, which the demons have taken 
possession of to bring trouble among Christians. 
We will destroy it, and we will destroy the column 
and its diamond, and in their place we will build 
two refuges for the use of the pilgrims who cross 
the two mountains. Go thou, as the tenth one in 
this band ; then wilt thou conjure the demons. 
Thou shalt bind the statue with a blessed stole, and 
its ruins will mingle with the chaos of the moun- 
tains. Thus shalt thou destroy the power of evil to 
the day of judgment." 

And in proof of the thoroughness with which Ber- 
nard performed his work, it is told that a spiritual- 
ist who took pleasure in tipping tables came through 
the pass in 1857. The monks were incredulous of 
his powers, and he wished to convince them by 
an actual experience. His efforts were all in vain. 
The tables, the record tells us, were quiet as the 
rocks. The traveler, astonished, said : " This is 
the first time they have failed to obey me." And 



THE WHITE STOLE AND THE DEMON. 167 

thus, says the record, the pledge of Saint Nicholas 
was accomplished. The enemy had never more an 
entrance into the mountain. 

When Bernard and his followers reached Mont 
Joux, they found the mountain filled with fog and 
storm, but his heart was undaunted. Passing 
boldly between the guards of the temple, he flung, 
so the story says, his blessed stole over the neck of 
the statue of Jupiter. It changed at once into an 
iron chain, against which the statue, now become 
a huge demon-monster, straggled in vain. The 
good man overturned it and flung it at his feet. 
With the same chain he bound the high priest who 
guarded the demon. The struggle was short, but 
decisive. In a few minutes, so the chronicle says, 
Bernard had banished the demon of Mont Joux and 
his accomplices to eternal snow and ice to the end 
of time, and had commanded them to cease forever 
their evil doings on the mountain. 

An old painting in the Hospice shows this scene 
in vivid portrait. Bernard stands erect and fear- 
less, his fine face lit up by celestial zeal, his bare 
head surrounded by a halo, a pilgrim's staff in his 
right hand, the stole, now become a chain, in his 
left, while one foot is on the breast of the demon, 
which gasps helpless at his feet. The demon has 



168 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

the body of a man, covered with a wolf's rough, 
shaggy hair, his fingers and toes ending in sharp 
claws, a long tail, rough and scaly, like the tail of a 
rat, coiled snake-like above his legs, the head and 
ears of a wolf, the horns of a goat, and on his back 
an indefinable outgrowth, perhaps the framework 
of a horrible pair of wings, its long tongue thrust 
out from between its bloody teeth. He was cer- 
tainly a gruesome creature. 

And thus it came to pass in the year 970, in the 
place of the temple of Jupiter Pen, but at the other 
end of the lake, and in the very summit of the pass, 
was built the Hospice of the Great Saint Bernard. 
From that day to this, almost a thousand years, 
the work of doing good to men has been humbly 
and patiently carried on. 

Not long afterward, in a similar way, Bernard 
attacked the Graian Alps, overthrew the column of 
Jupiter, crushed its bright diamond to the finest 
dust, which he scattered in the winds, and built 
in its place a second Hospice, which, with the pass, 
has borne ever since the name of the Little Saint 
Bernard. 

Silver and gold, the builders of this Hospice had 
none. Ever since the beginning, they have exer- 
cised their charities at the expense of those who 




SAINT BERNARD AND THE DEMON. 



DEGREES IN CHARITY. Ill 

cared for the Lord's work. All who pass by are 
treated alike. Those who are received into the 
Hospice can leave much or little — something or 
nothing, whatever they please, — to carry the same 
same help to others. 

In the book of the good Saint Francis de Sales 
long ago, so the chronicle says, these words were 
written : 

" There are many degrees in charity. To lend 
to the poor, this is the first degree. To give to the 
poor is a higher degree. Still higher to give one- 
self; to devote one's life to the service of the poor. 
Hospitality, when necessity is not extreme, is a 
counsel, and to receive the stranger is its first de- 
gree. But to go out on the roads to find and help, 
as Abraham did, this is a grade still higher. Still 
higher is to live in dangerous places, to serve, aid, 
and save the passers-by; to attend, lodge, succor, 
and save from danger the travelers, who else would 
die in cold and storm. This is the work of the 
noble friend of God, who founded the hospitals on 
the two mountains, now for this called by his 
name, Great Saint Bernard, in the diocese of Sion, 
and the Little Saint Bernard, in the Tarentaise." 

And so the Hospice was built, and in the enthu- 
siastic words of a chronicle of the times, "Tears 
and sorrow were banished, peace and joy have 
replaced them; abundance has made there her 



172 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN, 

abode; the terrors have disappeared, and there 
reigns eternal springtime. Instead of hell, you 
will find there paradise." Not quite paradise, per- 
haps, so far as the elements are concerned, but a 
dozen kindly men, a legion of dogs, big, cheerful, 
and noisy, a warm fire, a simple meal, and a God- 
speed to all men, whatever their race, or creed, or 
temper. 

I need add but a word more of the history of 
Bernard himself. One day an old man and his 
wife came up to visit the Hospice and to pay their 
respects to the monk who had founded it. Bernard 
met them there, and at once recognized his father 
and mother. He received them sympathetically, 
and they told him the story of their lost son. Ber- 
nard spoke to them tenderly of the work to which 
God must have called him. He told them they 
should rejoice that their child had been found 
worthy of his purposes, and after a time they 
seemed to become reconciled, and felt that He 
doeth all things well. Then Bernard told them 
who he was, and when after many days they went 
away from the Hospice, they left the money to build 
in each of them a chapel. 

Bernard died in the year 1007, at the age of 
eighty-three. His last words were these : " Lord, 



DEATH OF BERNARD 173 

I give my soul into thy hands." The words, " The 
saint is dead," passed on from mouth to mouth 
throughout these Alpine regions. The peasants 
had canonized him already a hundred years before 
the sanctity of his work was officially recognized 
at Rome. 

The story of his burial is again marked by mira- 
cles. Rich men vied with each other in making 
funeral offerings. One gave him a magnificent stone 
coffin, but this man had been a usurer. Usury 
was a sin abhorred by Saint Bernard, and the 
people found that no force or persuasion could 
place his body within this coffin. Bo another tomb, 
less pretentious, but more worthy, was found. At 
the end Bernard's remains were divided among the 
churches, each of whom claimed him as its own. 
To the Hospice fell his ring and his cup, a tooth, 
and a few finger-bones, and, most important of all, 
his name — the " Great Saint Bernard." 

The chronicles give a long list of miracles which 
since then have been wrought in his name. These 
are for the most part wonderful healings, the still- 
ing of storms, the bringing of rain, the driving 
away of grasshoppers. However, men are prone 
always to look for the miracle in the things that 
are of least moment. The life and work of the 



174 THE CONQUEST OF JUPITER PEN. 

man was the real miracle, not the fligh t of grass- 
hoppers. The miracle of all time is the power of 
humanity when it works in harmony with the laws 
and purposes of God. Consecrated to God's work, 
and by the work's own severity protected through 
the centuries from corruption and temptation, the 
work of the monk of Aosta has outlasted palaces 
and thrones. Through the influence of charity, and 
piety, and truth, the demon has been driven from 
these mountains. When the love of man joins to 
the love of God, all spirits of evil vanish as mist 
before the morning sun. 



THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 



THE LAST OF THE PURITANS.* 

I HAVE a word to say of Thoreau, and of an 
episode which brought his character into bold 
relief, and which has fairly earned for him a place 
in American history, as well as in onr literature. 

I do not wish now to give any account of the life 
of Thoreau. In the preface to his volume called 
" Excursions " you will find a biographical sketch, 
written by the loving hand of Mr. Emerson, his 
neighbor and friend. Neither shall I enter into 
any justification of Thoreau's peculiar mode of life, 
nor shall I describe the famous cabin in the pine 
woods by Walden Pond, already becoming the 
Mecca of the Order of Saunterers, whose great 
prophet was Thoreau. His profession of land- 
surveyor was one naturally adopted by him ; for to 
him every hill and forest was a being, each with its 
own individuality. This profession kept him in the 
fields and woods, with the sky over his head and the 
mold under his feet. It paid him the money needed 
for his daily wants, and he cared for no more. 



♦Address before the California State Normal School, at San Jose, 1892. 
177 



178 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

He seldom went far away from Concord, and, in 
a half-playful way, he used to view everything in 
the world from a Concord standpoi All the 

grandest trees grew there and all the rarest flowers, 
and nearly all the phenomena of nature could be 
observed at Concord. 

" Nothing can be hoped of you," he said, " if this 
bit of mold under your feet is not sweeter to you 
than any other in this world — in any world." 

Although one of the most acute of observers, 
Thoreau was never reckoned among the scientific 
men of his time. He was never a member of any 
Natural History Society, nor of any Academy of 
Sciences, bodies which, in a general way, he held 
in not altogether unmerited contempt. When men 
band together for the study of nature, they first 
draft a long constitution, with its attendant by- 
laws, and then proceed to the election of officers, 
and, by and by, the study of nature becomes subor- 
dinate to the maintenance of the organization. 

In technical scientific work, Thoreau took little 
pleasure. It is often pedantic, often bloodless, and 
often it is a source of inspiration only to him by 
whom the work is done. Animals and plants were 
interesting to him, not in their structure and gen- 
ealogical affinities, but in their relations to his 



A WORD FOB WILDNES8. 179 

mind. He loved wild things, not alone for them- 
selves, but for the tonic effect of their savagery upon 
him. 

"I wish to speak a word for nature," he said, 
" for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted 
with a freedom and culture merely civil, to regard 
man as an inhabitant, a part and parcel of nature, 
rather than as a member of society. I wish to 
make an extreme statement; if so, I may make an 
emphatic one, for there are enough champions of 
civilization. The minister and the school commit- 
tees, and every one of you, will take care of that." 

To Thoreau's admirers, he is the prophet of the 
fields and woods, the interpreter of nature, and his 
every word has to them the deepest significance. 
He is the man who 

" Lives all alone, close to the bone, 
And where life is sweetest, constantly eatest." 

They resent all criticism of his life or his words. 
They are impatient of all analysis of his methods 
or of his motives, and a word of praise of him is 
the surest passport to their good graces. 

But the critics sometimes miss the inner harmo- 
ny which Thoreau's admirers see, and discern only 
queer paradoxes and extravagances of statement 
where the others hear the voice of nature's oracle. 



180 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

With most literary men, the power or disposition 
of those who know or understand their writings is 
in some degree a matter of literary culture. It is 
hardly so in the case of Thoreau. 

The most illiterate man I know who had ever 
heard of Thoreau, Mr. Barney Mullins, of Freedom 
Centre, Outagamie County, Wisconsin, was a most 
ardent admirer of Thoreau, while the most emi- 
nent critic in America, James Russell Lowell, does 
him scant justice. To Lowell, the finest thoughts 
of Thoreau are but strawberries from Emerson's 
garden, and other critics have followed back these 
same strawberries through Emerson's to still older 
gardens, among them to that of Sir Thomas 
Browne. 

But, setting the critics aside, let me tell you 
about Barney Mullins. Twenty years ago, I lived 
for a year in the northern part of Wisconsin. The 
snow is very deep in the winter there, and once I 
rode into town through the snowbanks on a sled 
drawn by two oxen and driven by Barney Mullins. 
Barney was born on the banks of Killarney, and 
he could scarcely be said to speak the English lan- 
guage. He told me that before he came to Freedom 
Centre he had lived in a town called Concord, in 
Massachusetts. I asked him if he had happened to 



BAENEY MULLINS AND THOREAU. 181 

know a man there by the name of Henry Thoreau. 
He at once grew enthusiastic and he said, among 
other things: "Mr. Thoreau was a land-surveyor 
in Concord. I knew him well. He had a way of 
his own, and he didn't care naught about money, 
but if there was ever a gentleman alive, he was 
one." 

Barney seemed much saddened when I told him 
that Mr. Thoreau had been dead a dozen years. 
On parting, he asked me to come out some time to 
Freedom Centre, and to spend a night with him. 
He had n't much of a room to offer me, but there 
was always a place in his house for a friend of Mr. 
Thoreau. Such is the feeling of this guild of lovers 
of Thoreau, and some of you may come to belong 
to it. 

Here is a test for you. Thoreau says : " I long 
ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, 
and am still on their trail. Many are the travelers 
I have spoken to regarding them, describing their 
tracks, and what calls they answered to. I have 
met one or two who have heard the hound and the 
tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disap- 
pear behind the cloud, and they seemed as anxious 
to recover them as if they had lost them them- 
selves." 



182 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

Now, if any of you, in your dreams, have heard 
the horse, or seen the sunshine on the dove's wings, 
you may join in the search. If not, you may close 
the book, for Thoreau has not written for you. 

This Thoreau guild is composed, as he himself 
says, " of knights of a new, or, rather, an old order, 
not equestrians or chevaliers, not Hitters, or riders, 
but walkers, a still more ancient and honorable 
class, I trust." 

" I have met," he says, " but one or two persons 
who understand the art of walking; who had a 
genius for sauntering, which word is beautifully 
derived from idle people who roved about the coun- 
try in the Middle Ages and asked charity, under 
pretense of going ' a la Sainte Terre* — a Sainte-terrer, 
a Holy Lander. They who never go to the Holy 
Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed 
mere idlers and vagabonds ; but they who go there 
are saunterers, in the good sense. Every walk is a 
kind of crusade preached by some Peter the Her- 
mit within us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy 
Land from the hands of the Infidels. 

" It is true that we are but faint-hearted crusa- 
ders, who undertake no persevering, never-ending 
enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and 
come round again at evening to the old hearth- 



KNIGHTS OF THE ORDER OF SATJNTERERS. 183 

side from which we set out Half the walk is but 
retracing our steps. We should go forth on the 
shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying 
adventure, never to return, prepared to send back 
our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate 
kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and 
mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child, 
and friends; if you have paid your debts, and made 
your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a 
free man, you are ready for a walk." 

Though a severe critic of conventional follies, 
Thoreau was always a hopeful man; and no finer 
rebuke to the philosophy of Pessimism was ever 
given than in these words of his: "I know of no 
more encouraging fact than the unquestionable 
ability of a man to elevate his life by a conscious 
endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a 
particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so make 
a few objects beautiful ; but it is far more glorious 
to carve and paint the very atmosphere and me- 
dium through which we look. This, morally, we 
can do." 

But it is not of Thoreau as a saunterer, or as a 
naturalist, or as an essayist, that I wish to speak, 
but as a moralist, and this in relation to American 
politics. Thoreau lived in a dark day of our politi- 



184 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

cal history. At one time he made a declaration of 
independence in a small way, and refused alle- 
giance and poll-tax to a Government built on a 
corner-stone of human slavery. Because of this 
he was put into jail, where he remained one night, 
and where he made some curious observations on 
his townspeople as viewed from the inside of the 
bars. Emerson came along in the morning, and 
asked him what he was there for. " Why are you 
not in here, Mr. Emerson?" was his reply; for it 
seemed to him that no man had the right to be free 
in a country where some men were slaves. 

"Voting for the right," Thoreau said, "is doing 
nothing for it; it is only expressing feebly your 
desire that right should prevail." He would not for 
an instant recognize that political organization as 
his government which was the slave's government 
also. "In fact," he said, "I will quietly, after my 
fashion, declare war with the State. Under a gov- 
ernment which imprisons any unjustly, the true 
place for a just man is also a prison. I know this 
well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, or if 
one honest man in this State of Massachusetts, 
ceasiLg to remain in this co-partnership, should 
be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would 
be the abolition of slavery in America. It matters 



A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 185 

not how small the beginning may seem to be, what 
is once well done is done forever." 

Thorean's friends paid his taxes for him, and he 
was set free, so that the whole affair seemed like 
a joke. Yet, as Stevenson says, " If his example 
had been followed by a hundred, or by thirty of 
his followers, it would have greatly precipitated 
the era of freedom and justice. We feel the mis- 
deeds of our country with so little fervor, for we 
are not witnesses to the suffering they cause. But 
when we see them awake an active horror in our 
fellow-man ; when we see a neighbor prefer to lie 
in prison than be so much as passively implicated 
in their perpetration, even the dullest of us will 
begin to realize them with a quicker pulse." 

In the feeling that a wrong, no matter how great, 
must fall before the determined assault of a man, 
no matter how weak, Thoreau found the reason 
for his action. The operation of the laws of God 
is like an incontrollable torrent. Nothing can stand 
before them; but the work of a single man may 
set the torrent in motion which will sweep away 
the accumulations of ojnturies of wrong. 

There is a long chapter in our national history 
which is not a glorious record. Most of us are too 
young to remember much of politics under the 



186 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

Fugitive Slave Law, or to understand the defer- 
ence which politicians of every grade then paid to 
the peculiar institution. It was in those days in 
the Middle "West that Kentucky blackguards, backed 
by the laws of the United States, and aided not by 
Northern blackguards alone, but by many of the 
best citizens of those States, chased runaway slaves 
through the streets of our Northern capitals. 

And not the politicians alone, but the teachers 
and preachers, took their turn in paying tribute to 
Caesar. We were told that the Bible itself was a 
champion of slavery. Two of our greatest theolo- 
gians in the North declared, in the name of the 
Higher Law, that slavery was a holy thing, which 
the Lord, who cursed Canaan, would ever uphold. 

In those days there came a man from the West — 
a tall, gaunt, grizzly, shaggy-haired, God-fearing 
man, a son of the Puritans, whose ancestors came 
over on the Mayflower. A dangerous fanatic or 
lunatic, he was called, and, with the aid of a few 
poor negroes whom he had stolen from slavery, he 
defied the power of this whole slave-catching United 
States. A little square brick building, once a sort 
of car-shop, stands near the railway station in the 
town of Harper's Ferry, with the mountain wall 
not far behind it, and the Potomac River running 




JOHN BROWN'. 



HIS SOUL WENT MARCHING ON. 189 

below. And from this building was fired the shot 
which pierced the heart of slavery. And the Gov- 
ernor of Virginia captured this man, and took him 
out and hung him, and laid his body in the grave, 
where it still lies moldering. But there was part 
of him not in the jurisdiction of Virginia, a part 
which they could neither hang nor bury ; and, to 
the infinite surprise of the Governor of Virginia, 
his soul went marching on. 

When they heard in Concord that John Brown 
had been captured, and was soon to be hung, 
Thoreau sent notice through the city that he would 
speak in the public hall on the condition and 
character of John Brown, on Sunday evening, and 
invited all to be present. 

The Republican Committee and the Committee 
of the Abolitionists sent word to him that this was 
no time to speak ; to discuss such matters then was 
premature and inadvisable. He replied : " I did 
not send to you for advice, but to tell you that I 
am going to speak." The selectmen of Concord 
dared neither grant nor refuse him the hall. At 
last they ventured to lose the key in a place where 
they thought he could find it. 

This address of Thoreau, "A Plea for Captain 
John Brown," should be a classic in American his- 



190 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

tory. We do not always realize that the time of 
American history is now. The dates of the settle- 
ment of Jamestown, and Plymouth, and St. Augus- 
tine do not constitute our history. Columbus did 
not discover us. In a high sense, the true America 
is barely thirty years old, and its first President 
was Abraham Lincoln. 

We in the North are a little impatient at times, 
and our politicians, who are not always our best 
citizens, mutter terrible oaths, especially in the 
month of October, because the South is not yet 
wholly regenerate, because not all which sprang 
from the ashes of the slave-pen were angels of light. 

But let us be patient while the world moves on- 
Forty years ago not only the banks of the Yazoo 
and the Chattahoochee, but those of the Hudson, 
and the Charles, and the Wabash, were under the 
lash. On the eve of John Brown's hanging not half 
a dozen men in the city of Concord, the most intel- 
lectual town in New England, the home of Emer- 
son, and Hawthorne, and Alcott, dared say that 
they felt any respect for the man or sympathy for 
the cause for which he died. 

I wish to quote a few passages from this "' Plea 
for Captain John Brown." To fully realize its power, 
you should read it all for yourselves. You must put 



THE VOICE OF NATURE IN PROTEST. 191 

yourselves back into history, now already seeming 
almost ancient history to us, to the period when 
Buchanan was President — the terrible sultry lull 
just before the great storm. You must picture the 
audience of the best people in Massachusetts, half- 
sympathizing with Captain Brown, half-afraid of 
being guilty of treason in so doing. You must pic- 
ture the speaker, with his clear-cut, earnest features 
and penetrating voice. No preacher, no politician, 
no professional reformer, no Republican, no Demo- 
crat ; a man who never voted ; a naturalist whose 
companions were the flowers and the birds, the 
trees and the squirrels. It was the voice of Nature 
in protest against slavery and "in plea for Captain 
Brown. 

" My respect for my fellow-men," said Thoreau, 
" is not being increased these days. I have noticed 
the cold-blooded way in which men speak of this 
event, as if an ordinary malefactor, though one of 
unusual pluck, ' the gamest man I ever saw/ the 
Governor of Virginia said, had been caught and was 
about to be hung. He was not thinking of his foes 
when the Governor of Virginia thought he looked 
so brave. 

" It turns what sweetness I have to gall to hear 
the remarks of some of my neighbors. "When we 
heard at first that he was dead, one of my towns- 



192 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

men observed that 'he dieth as the fool dieth, 5 
which, for an instant, suggested a likeness in him 
dying to my neighbor living. Others, craven- 
hearted, said, disparagingly, that he threw his life 
away because he resisted the Government. Which 
way have they thrown their lives, pray? 

" I hear another ask, Yankee-like, ' What will he 
gain by it?' as if he expected to fill his pockets by 
the enterprise. If it does not lead to a surprise party, 
if he does not get a new pair of boots or a vote of 
thanks, it must be a failure. But he won't get 
anything. Well, no ; I don't suppose he could get 
four-and-sixpence a day for being hung, take the 
year around, but he stands a chance to save his 
soul — and such a soul! — which you do not. You 
can get more in your market for a quart of milk 
than a quart of blood, but yours is not the market 
heroes carry their blood to. 

" Such do not know that like the seed is the fruit, 
and that in the moral world, when good seed is 
planted, good fruit is inevitable; that when you 
plant or bury a hero in his field, a crop of heroes is 
sure to spring up. This is a seed of such force and 
vitality, it does not ask our leave to germinate. 

" A man does a brave and humane deed, and on 
all sides we hear people and parties declaring, * I 
didn't do it, nor countenance him to do it in any 
conceivable way. It can't fairly be inferred from 
my past career.' Ye need n't take so much pains, 
my friends, to wash your skirts of him. No one 



NOBODY RESPONSIBLE FOB JOHN BROWN. 193 

will ever be convinced that he was any creature of 
yours. He went and came, as he himself informs us, 
under the anspices of John Brown, and nobody else. 

" ' All is quiet in Harper's Ferry/ say the jour- 
nals. What is the character of that calm which 
follows when the law and the slaveholder prevail? 
I regard this event as a touchstone designed to bring 
out with glaring distinctness the character of this 
Government. We needed to be thus assisted to see 
it by the light of history. It needed to see itself. 
When a government puts forth its strength on the 
side of injustice, as ours, to maintain slavery and 
kill the liberators of the slave, it reveals itself 
simply as brute force. It is more manifest than 
ever that tyranny rules. I see this Government to 
be effectually allied with France and Austria in 
oppressing mankind. 

"The only government that I recognize — and it 
matters not how few are at the head of it, or how 
small its army, — is the power that establishes 
justice in the land, never that which establishes 
injustice. What shall we think of a government 
to which all the truly brave and just men in the 
land are enemies, standing between it and those 
whom it oppresses? 

"Treason! Where does such treason take its rise? 
I cannot help thinking of you as ye deserve, ye 
governments! Can you dry up the fountain of 
thought? High treason, when it is resistance to 
tyranny here below, has its origin in the power 



194 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

that makes and forever re-creates man. When you 
have caught and hung all its human rebels, you 
have accomplished nothing but your own guilt. 
You have not struck at the fountain-head. The 
same indignation which cleared the temple once 
will clear it again. 

" I hear many condemn these men because they 
were so few. When were the good and the brave 
ever in the majority? Would you have had him 
wait till that time came? Till you and I came 
over to him? The very fact that he had no rabble 
or troop of hirelings about him, would alone dis- 
tinguish him from ordinary heroes. His company 
was small, indeed, because few could be found 
worthy to pass muster. Each one who there laid 
down his life for the poor and oppressed was a 
picked man, called out of many thousands, if not 
millions. A man of principle, of rare courage and 
devoted humanity, ready to sacrifice his life at 
any moment for the benefit of his fellow-man ; it 
may be doubted if there were as many more their 
equals in the country; for their leader, no doubt, 
had scoured the land far and wide, seeking to swell 
his troop. These alone were ready to step between 
the oppressor and the oppressed. Surely they were 
the very best men you could select to be hung! 
That was the greatest compliment their country 
could pay them. They were ripe for her gallows. 
She has tried a long time; she has hung a good 
man}', but never found the right one before. 



HOW A MAN CAN DIE. 195 

" When I think of him and his six sons and his 
son-in-law enlisted for this fight, proceeding coolly, 
reverently, humanely to work, for months, if not 
years, summering and wintering the thought, with- 
out expecting any reward but a good conscience, 
while almost all America stood ranked on the other 
side, I say again that it affects me as a sublime 
spectacle. 

" If he had had any journal advocating his cause, 
any organ monotonously and wearisomely playing 
the same old tune and then passing around the hat, 
it would have been fatal to his efficiency. If he 
had acted in such a way as to be let alone by the 
Government, he might have been suspected. It 
was the fact that the tyrant must give place to him, 
or he to the tyrant, that distinguished him from all 
the reformers of the day that I know. 

" This event advertises me that there is such a 
fact as death, the possibility of a man's dying. It 
seems as if no man had ever died in America be- 
fore. If this man's acts and words do not create a 
revival, it will be the severest possible satire on 
words and acts that do. 

"It is the best news that America has ever heard. 
It has already quickened the feeble pulse of the 
North, and infused more generous blood in her 
veins than any number of years of what is called 
political and commercial prosperity. How many a 
man who was lately contemplating suicide has now 
something to live for! 



196 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

" I am here to plead his cause with you. I plead 
not for his life, but for his character, his immortal 
life, and so it becomes your cause wholly, and it is 
not his in the least. 

"Some eighteen hundred years ago Christ was 
crucified; this morning, perchance, Captain Brown 
was hung. These are the two ends of the chain 
which is not without its links. He is not Old 
Brown any longer ; he is an angel of light. I see 
now that it was necessary that the bravest and 
humanest man in all the country should be hung. 
Perhaps he saw it himself. I almost fear that I 
may yet hear of his deliverance, doubting if a pro- 
longed life, if any life, can do as much good as his 
death. 

" ' Misguided ! Garrulous ! Insane ! Vindictive ! ' 
So you write in your easy chairs, and thus he, 
wounded, responds from the floor of the Armory — 
clear as a cloudless sky, true as the voice of Nature 
is! i No man sent me here. It was my own prompt- 
ings and that of my Maker. I acknowledge no 
master in human form.' 

"And in what a sweet and noble strain he pro- 
ceeds, addressing his captors, who stand over him. 

" ' I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great 
wrong against God and humanity, and it would 
be perfectly right for any one to interfere with you 
so far as to free those you willfully and wickedly 
hold in bondage. I have yet to learn that God is 
any respecter of persons. 






"NO MAN SENT ME HEBE. 11 197 

" ' I pity the poor in bondage, who have none to 
help them ; that is why I am here, not to gratify 
personal animosity, revenge, or vindictive spirit. 
It is my sympathy with the oppressed and the 
wronged that are as good as you are, and as pre- 
cious in the sight of God. 

" ' I wish to say, furthermore, that you had better, 
all of you people at the South, prepare yourselves 
for a settlement of that question, that must come 
up for settlement sooner than you are prepared for 
it. The sooner you are prepared the better. You 
may dispose of me now very easily — I am nearly 
disposed of already, — but this question is still to be 
settled, this negro question, I mean; the end of that 
is not yet.' " 

" I foresee the time," said Thoreau, " when the 
painter will paint that scene, no longer going to 
Rome for his subject. The poet will sing it; the 
historian record it ; and, with the Landing of the 
Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it 
will be the ornament of some future national gal- 
lery, when at least the present form of slavery shall 
be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to 
weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, 
we will take our revenge." 

A few years ago, while on a tramp through the 
North Woods, I came out through the forests of 
North Elba, to the old "John Brown Farm." Here 
John Brown lived for many years, and here he tried 



198 THE LAST OF THE PURITANS. 

to establish a colony of freed slaves in the pure air 
of the mountains. Here, too, his family remained 
through the stirring times when he took part in the 
bloody struggles that made and kept Kansas free. 

The little old brown farmhouse stands on the 
edge of the great woods, a few miles to the north 
of the highest peaks of the Adirondacks. There is 
nothing unusual about the house. You will find a 
dozen such in a few hours' walk almost anywhere 
in the mountain parts of New England or New 
York. It stands on a little hill, " in a sightly 
place," as they say in that region, with no shelter 
of trees around it. 

At the foot of the hill in a broad curve flows the 
River Au Sable, small and clear and cold, and full 
of trout. It is not far above that the stream takes 
its rise in the dark Indian Pass, the only place in 
these mountains where the ice of winter lasts all 
summer long. The same ice on the one side sends 
forth the Au Sable, and on the other feeds the 
fountain head of the infant Hudson River. 

In the little dooryard in front of the farmhouse 
is the historic spot where John Brown's body still 
lies moldering. There is not even a grave of his 
own. His bones lie with those of his father, and 
the short record of his life and death is crowded on 



DUST TO DUST; GRANITE TO GRANITE. 201 

the foot of his father's tombstone. Near by, in 
the little yard, lies a huge, wandering boulder, 
torn off years ago by the glaciers from the granite 
hills that hem in Indian Pass. The boulder is 
ten feet or more in diameter, large enough to make 
the farmhouse behind it seem small in comparison. 
On its upper surface, in letters two feet long, which 
can be read plainly for a mile away, is cut the 
simple name — 

JOHN BROWN. 

This is John Brown's grave, and the place, the 
boulder, and the inscription are alike fitting to the 
man he was. 

Dust to dust; ashes to ashes; granite to granite; 
the last of the Puritans! 



& 



A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 



A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS.* 



" In London I saw two pictures. One was of a woman. You would 
not mistake it for any of the Greek goddesses. It had a splendor and 
majesty such as Phidias might have given to a woman Jupiter. But not 
terrible. The culmination of the awful beauty was in an expression of 
matchless compassion. If there had been other figures, they must have 
been suffering humanity at her feet. 

"The other was also of a woman. Whose face it is hard to say. Not 
the Furies, not Lady Macbeth, not Catherine de Medici, not Philip the 
Second, not Nero, not any face you have ever seen, but a gathering up 
from all the faces you have seen —the greatness, the splendor, the sava- 
gery, the greed, the pride, the hate, the mercilessness, into one colossal, 
terrifyingly Satanic woman-face. The first was clothed in a simple, soft, 
white robe ; the other in a befitting tragic splendor, mostly blood-red. 
I looked from one to the other. What immeasurable distance between 
theml What single point have they in common? But as I look back 
and forth I seem to see a certain formal similarity. It grows upon me. 
I am incredulous. I am appalled. Then one touches me and whispers : 
'They are the same. It is the Church.' In London I saw this— in the 
air."— William Lowe Bryan. 



FOUR centuries ago began the great struggle 
for freedom of thought which has made our 
modern civilization possible. I wish here to give 
something of the story of a man who in his day 
was not the least in this conflict — a man who 



♦For many of the details of the life of Hutten, and for most of the 
quotations from Hutten's writings given in this paper, the writer is 
indebted to the excellent memoir by David Friedrich Strauss, entitled 
"Ulrica von Hutten." (Fourth Edition: Bonn, 1878.) No attempt has 
been made to give here an account of Hutten's writings, only a few of 
the more noteworthy being mentioned. 

207 



208 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

dared to think and act for himself when thought 
and act were costly — Ulrich von Hutten. 

Near Frankfort-on-the-Main, on a sharp pinnacle 
of rock above the little railway station of Vollmerz, 
may still be found the scanty ruins of an old castle 
which played a brave part in German history be- 
fore it was destroyed in the Thirty Years War. 

In this castle of Steckelberg, in the year 1488, 
was born Ulrich von Hutten. He was the last of a 
long line of Huttens of Steckelberg, strong men 
who knew not fear, who had fought for the Em- 
peror in all lands whither the imperial eagle had 
flown, and who, when the empire was at peace, had 
fought right merrily with their neighbors on all 
sides. Robber-knights they were, no doubt, some 
or all of them; but in those days all was fair in 
love and in war. And this line of warriors centered 
in Ulrich von Hutten, and with him it ended. 
" The wild kindred has gone out with this its 
greatest." 

Ulrich was the eldest son, and bore his father's 
name. But he was not the son his father had 
dreamed of. Slender of figure, short of stature, 
and weak of limb, Ulrich seemed unworthy of his 
burly ancestry. The horse, the sword, and the lute 
were not for him. He tried hard to master them 



THE LIFE OF A SCHOLAR. 209 

and to succeed in all things worthy of a knight. 
But he was strong only with his books. At last to 
his books his father consigned him, and, sorely 
disappointed, he sent Ulrich to the monastery of 
Fulda to be made a priest. 

A wise man, Eitelwolf von Stein, became his 
friend, and pointed out to him a life braver than 
that of a priest, more noble than that of a knight, 
the life of a scholar. To Hutten's father Eitelwolf 
wrote: " Would you bury a genius like that in the 
cloister? He must be a man of letters." But the 
father had decided once for all. Ulrich must never 
return to Steckelberg unless he came back as a 
priest. And the son took his fate in his own 
hands, and fled from Fulda, to make his way as a 
scholar in a world in which scholarship received 
scanty recognition. 

At the same time another young man whose 
history was to be interwoven with his own, Martin 
Luther, fled from the wickedness and deceit of this 
same world to the solitude of the monastery of 
Erfurth. By very different paths they came at last 
to work in the same cause, and their modes of 
action were not less different. 

To the University of Cologne Hutten went, and 
with the students of that day he was trained in the 



210 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

mysteries of scholasticism, and in the Latin of the 
schoolmen and the priests. Wonderful problems 
they pondered over, and they used to write long 
arguments in Latin for or against propositions 
which came nowhere within the domain of fact. 
That scholarship stood related to reality, and that 
it must find its end and justification in action was 
no part of the philosophy of those times. 

But Hutten and his friends cared little for 
scholastic puzzles and they gave themselves to the 
study of the beauties of Latin poetry and to the 
newly opened mine of the literature of Greece. 
They delighted in Virgil and Lucian, and still more 
in Homer and JEschylus. 

The Turks had conquered Constantinople, and 
the fall of the Greek Empire had driven many 
learned Greeks to the West of Europe. There some 
of the scholars received them with open arms, and 
eagerly learned from them to read Homer and 
Aristotle in the original tongue, and the New Testa- 
ment also. Those who followed these studies came 
to be known as Humanists. But most of the uni- 
versities and the monasteries in Germany looked 
upon this revival of Greek culture as pernicious 
and antichristian. Poetry they despised. The 
Latin Vulgate met their religious needs, and Greek 



DESPISING THE LESSER GODS IN SILENCE. 211 

was only another name for Paganism. The party 
name of Obscurantists ("Dunkelmanner") was given 
to these, and this name has remained with them on 
the records of history. 

In the letters of one of Hutten's comrades we 
find this confession of faith, which is interesting as 
expressing the feelings of young men of that time : 
" There is but one God, but he has many forms, 
and many names — Jupiter, Sol, Apollo, Moses, 
Christ, Luna, Ceres, Proserpine, Tellus, Mary. But 
be careful how you say that. One must disclose 
these things in secret, like Eleusinian mysteries. 
In matters of religion, you must use the cover of 
fables and riddles. You, with Jupiter's grace (that 
is, the grace of the best and greatest god), can 
despise the lesser gods in silence. When I say Jupi- 
ter, I mean Christ and the true God. The coat and 
the beard and the bones of Christ I worship not. 
I worship the living God, who wears no coat nor 
beard, and left no bones upon the earth." 

Hutten wished to know the world, not from books 
only, but to see all cities and lands; to measure 
himself with other men; to rise above those less 
worthy. The danger of such a course seemed to 
him only the greater attraction. Content to him 
was laziness; love of home but a dog's delight in 



212 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

a warm fire. " I live," he said, " in no place rather 
than another; my home is everywhere." 

So he tramped through Germany to the north- 
ward, and had but a sorry time. In his own mind 
he was a scholar, a poet, a knight of the noblest 
blood of Germany; to others he was a little sickly 
and forlorn vagrant. Never strong of body, he was 
stricken by a miserable disease which filled his life 
with a succession of attacks of fever. He was ship- 
wrecked on the Baltic Sea, sick and forlorn in 
Pomerania, and at last he was received in charity 
in the house of Henning Lotz, professor of law at 
Greifeswald. 

This action has given Lotz's name immortality, 
for it is associated with the first of those fiery 
poems of Hutten which, in their way, are unique 
in literature. For Hutten was restless and proud, 
and was not to be content with bread and butter 
and a new suit of clothes. This independence was 
displeasing to the professor, who finally, in utter 
disgust, turned Hutten out of doors in midwinter. 
When the boy had tramped a while in storm and 
slush, two servants of Lotz overtook him on the 
road and robbed him of his money and clothing. 
In a wretched plight he reached a little inn in 
Rostock, in Mecklenberg. Here the professors in 



FELLOW- FEELING AMONG FREE SPIRITS. 213 

the university received him kindty, and made pro- 
vision for his needs. Then he let loose the fury 
of his youthful anger on Lotz. As ever, his poetic 
genius rose with his wrath, and the more angry 
he became the greater was he as a poet. 

Two volumes he published, ringing the changes 
of his contempt and hatred of Lotz, at the same 
time praising the virtues of those who had found 
in him a kindred spirit. A " knight of the order 
of poets," he styles himself, and to all Humanists, 
to the "fellow-feeling among free spirits" ( i( Gem- 
eingeist unter freien Geistern") he appeals for sym- 
pathy in his struggle with Lotz. 

He had, indeed, not found a foeman worthy of 
his steel, but he had shown what a finely tempered 
blade he bore. Foemen enough he found in later 
times, and his steel had need of all its sharpness 
and temper. And it never failed him to the last. 

Meanwhile he wandered to Vienna, giving lec- 
tures there on the art of poetry. But poetry was 
abhorred by the schoolmen everywhere, and the 
students of the university were forbidden to attend 
his lectures. He then went to Italy. When he 
reached Pavia, he found the city in the midst of a 
siege, surrounded by a hostile French army. He 
fell ill of a fever, and giving himself up for dead, 



214 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

he composed the famous epitaph for himself, of 
which I give a rough translation : 

Here, also be it said, a life of ill-fortune is ended ; 

By evil pursued on the water ; beset by wrong upon land. 
Here lie Hutten's bones ; he, who had done nothing wrongful, 

Was wickedly robbed of his life by the sword in a French- 
man's hand. 
By Fate, decided that he should see unlucky days only; 

Decided that even these days could never be many or long ; 
Hemmed in by danger and death, he forsook not serving the 
muses, 

And as well as he could, he rendered this service in song. 

The Frenchman's sword did not rob him of his 
life. The Frenchman's hand took only his money, 
which was not much, and again sent him adrift. 
He now set his pen to writing epigrams on the 
Emperor, wherein Maximilian was compared to 
the eagle which should devour the frogs in the 
swamps of Venice. Meanwhile he enlisted as a 
common soldier in Maximilian's army. 

In Italy, the abuses of the Papacy attracted his 
attention. Officials of the Church were then en- 
gaged in extending the demand for indulgences. 
The sale of pardons " straight from Rome, all hot," 
was becoming a scandal in Christendom. All this 
roused the wrath of Hutten, who attacked the Pope 
himself in his songs: 



DUKE ULRICH AND HANS HUTTEN. 215 

*' Heaven now stands for a price to be peddled and sold, 
But what new folly is this, as though the fiat of Heaven 
Needed an earthly witness, an earthly warrant and seal! " 

More prosperous times followed, and we find 
Hutten honored as a poet, living in the court of the 
Archbishop of Mainz. At this time a cousin, Hans 
Hutten, a young man of great courage and prom- 
ise, was a knight in the service of Ulrich, Duke of 
Wurtemberg. He was a favorite of the Duke, and 
he and his young wife were the life of the Wiirtem- 
burg court. And Duke Ulrich once came to Hans 
and threw himself at his feet, begging that this 
wife, whom he loved, should be given over wholly 
to him. Hans Hutten answered the Duke like a 
man, and the Duke arose with murder in his heart. 
Afterward, when they were hunting in a wood, he 
stabbed Hans Hutten in the back with his sword. 

All this came to the ear of Ulrich Hutten in 
Mainz. Love for his cousin, love for his name and 
family, love for freedom and truth, all urged him 
to avenge the murdered Hans. The wrongs the 
boy had suffered from the coarse-hearted Professor 
Lotz became as nothing beside this great crime 
against the Huttens and against manhood. 

In all the history of invective, I know of nothing 
so fierce as Hutten's appeal against Duke Ulrich. 



216 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

In five different pamphlets his crime was described 
to the German people, and all good men, from the 
Emperor down, were called on to help him in his 
struggle against the Duke of Wiirtemberg. 

" I envy you your fame, you murderer,'' he wrote. 
"A year will be named for you, and there shall be 
a day set off for you. Future generations shall 
read, for those who are born this year, that they 
were born in the year stained by the ineffaceable 
shame of Germany. You will come into the calen- 
dar, scoundrel. You will enrich history. Your 
deed is immortal, and you will be remembered in 
all future time. You have had your ambition, and 
you shall never be forgotten." 

This struggle lasted long. Finally, after many 
appeals, the German nobles rose in arms and be- 
sieged Stuttgart, and Duke Ulrich was driven from 
the land he had disgraced. 

Again Hutten visited Italy, this time by a partial 
reconciliation with his father, who would overlook 
his failure to become a priest if he would study law 
at Rome. At about this time Luther visited Rome. 
He came, at first, in a spirit of reverence; but, at 
last, he wrote : " Wenn es gibt eine Holle, Roma ist 
darauf gebaut" (" If there is a hell, Rome is built 
on it.") 







ULRICH VON 1IUTTEN. 



ULBICH HUTTEN AT ROME. 219 

The impression on Hutten was scarcely less vivid. 
Little by little he began to see in the Pope of Rome 
a criminal greater that Professor Lotz, greater than 
Duke Ulrich, one who could devour not one cousin 
only, but the whole German people and nation. 
" For three hundred years," said he, " the Pope and 
the schoolmen have been covering the teachings of 
Christ with a mass of superstitious ceremonies and 
wicked books." These feelings were poured out in 
an appeal to the German rulers to shake off the 
yoke, and no longer send their money to " Simon 
of Home." 

Hutten's friends tried to quiet him. He was a 
man not of free thought only, but of free speech, and 
knew no concealment. Milder men in those times, 
as later Melancthon and Erasmus, were full of ad- 
miration of Hutten, and valued his skill and force. 
But they were afraid of him, and fearful always 
that the best of causes should be wrecked in his 
hands. 

At this time, at the age of twenty-five, Hutten is 
described as a small, thin man, of homely features, 
with blonde hair and black beard. His pale face 
wore a severe, almost wild, expression. His speech 
was sharp, often terrible. Yet with those whom he 
loved and respected his voice had a frank and win- 



220 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

ning charm. He had but few friends, but they were 
fast ones. His personal character, so far as records 
go, was singularly pure, and not often in his writ- 
ings does he strike a coarse or unclean note. 

In these days, the two most learned men in Ger- 
many were Erasmus and Reuchlin. They were 
leaders of the Humanists, skilled in Greek, and even 
in the Hebrew tongue, and were called by Hutten 
" the two eyes of Germany." A Jew named Pfeffer- 
korn, who had become converted to Christianity, 
was filled with an unholy zeal against his fellow- 
Jews who had not been converted. Among other 
things, he asked an edict from the Emperor that all 
Jewish books in Germany should be destroyed. 
Reuchlin was a Hebrew scholar. He had written a 
Hebrew grammar, and was learned in the Old 
Testament, as well as in the Talmud, and other 
deposits of the ancient lore of the rabbis. The 
Emperor referred PfefFerkorn's request to Reuchlin 
for his opinion. Reuchlin decided that there was 
no valid reason for the destruction of any of the 
ancient Jewish writings, and only of such modern 
ones as might be decided by competent scholars 
to be hostile to Christianity. 

This enraged Pfefferkorn and his Obscurantist 
associates. Pamphlets were written denouncing 



AMENITIES OF CONTROVERSY. 221 

Eeuchlin, and these were duly answered. A gen- 
eral war of words between the Humanists and Ob- 
scurantists began, which, in time, came before the 
Pope and the Emperor. Reuchlin was regarded in 
those days as a man of unusual calmness and dig- 
nity. Next to Erasmus, he was the most learned 
scholar in Europe. He would never condescend in 
his controversies to the coarse terms used by his 
adversaries. We may learn something of the tem- 
per of the times by observing that, in a single pam- 
phlet, as quoted by Strauss, the epithets that the 
dignified Reuchlin applies to Pfefferkorn are : " A 
poisonous beast," " a scarecrow," " a horror," u a 
mad dog," " a horse," " a mule," "a hog," " a fox," 
" a raging wolf," " a Syrian lion," " a Cerberus," " a 
fury of hell." In this matter Reuchlin was finally 
triumphant. This triumph was loudly celebrated 
by his friend Hutten in another poem, in which 
the Obscurantists were mercilessly attacked. 

We have seen with Hutten's growth a gradual 
increase in the importance of those to whom he 
declared himself an enemy. He began as a boy 
with the obscure Professor Lotz. He ended with 
the Pope of Rome. 

At this time Reuchlin published a volume called 
" Epistolse Clarorum Virorum " ( " letters of illus- 



222 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

trious men"). It was made up of letters written 
by the various learned men of Europe to Reuchlin, 
in sympathy with him in his struggle. The title 
of this work gave the keynote to a series of letters 
called " Epistolse Obscurorum Virorum" ("letters of 
obscure men") — that is, of Obscurantists. 

These letters, written by different persons, but 
largely by Hutten, are the most remarkable of all 
satires of that time. 

They are a series of imaginary epistles, supposed 
to be addressed by various Obscurantists to a poet 
named Ortuinus. They are written with consum- 
mate skill, in the degenerate Latin used by the 
priests in those days, and they are made to exhibit 
all the secret meanness, ignorance, and perversity 
of their supposed writers. 

The first of these epistles of the " obscure men " 
were eagerly read, by their supposed associates, the 
Obscurantists. Here were men who felt as they felt, 
and who were not afraid to speak. The mendicant 
friars in England had a day of rejoicing, and a 
Dominican friar in Flanders bought all the copies 
of the letters he could find to present to his bishop. 

But in time even the dullest began to feel the 
severity of the satire. The last of these letters 
formed the most telling blows ever dealt at the 



LETTERS OF OBSCURE MEN. 223 

schoolmen by the men of learning. In one of the 
earlier letters we find this question, which may serve 
as a type of many others : 

A man ate an egg in which a chicken was just 
beginning to form, ignorant of that fact, and forget- 
ting that it was Friday. A friend consoles him by 
saying that a chicken in that stage counts for no 
more than worms in cheese or in cherries, and 
these can be eaten even in fasting-time. But the 
writer is not satisfied. Worms, he had been told 
by a physician, who was also a great naturalist, are 
reckoned as fishes, which one can eat on fast-days. 
But with all this, he fears that a young chicken 
may be really forbidden food, and he asks the help 
of the poet Ortuinus to a righteous decision. 

Another person writes to Ortuinus : " There is a 
new book much talked of here, and, as you are a 
poet, you can do us a good service by telling us of 
it. A notary told me that this book is the well- 
spring of poetry, and that its author, one Homer, 
is the father of all poets. And he said there is 
another Homer in Greek. I said, ' What is the use 
of the Greek? the Latin is much better/ And I 
asked, 'What is contained in the book?' And he 
said it treats of certain people who are called- 
Greeks, who carried on a war with some others 



224 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

called Trojans. And these Trojans had a great 
city, and those Greeks besieged it and stayed there 
ten years. And the Trojans came out and fought 
them till the whole plain was covered with blood 
and quite red. And they heard the noise in 
heaven, and one of them threw a stone which 
twelve men could not lift, and a horse began to 
talk and utter prophecies. But I can't believe 
that, because it seems impossible, and the book 
seems to me not to be authentic. I pray you give 
me your opinion." 

Another relates the story of his visit to Reuchlin : 
"When I came into his house, Reuchlin said, 
' Welcome, bachelor; seat yourself/ And he had 
a pair of spectacles ( ' unum Brillum') on his nose, 
and a book before him curiously written, and I 
saw at once that it was neither in German nor 
Bohemian, nor yet in Latin. And I said to him, 
'Respected Doctor, what do they call that book?' 
He answered, 'It is called the Greek Plutarch, 
and it treats of philosophy.' And I said, 'Read 
some of it, for it must contain wonderful things.' 
Then I saw a little book, newly printed, lying on 
the floor, and I said to him, ' Respected Doctor, 
what lies there ? ? He answered, 'It is a contro- 
versial book, which a friend in Cologne sent me 



HUTTEN THE POET DREAMS OF LOVE. 225 

lately. It is written against me. The theolo- 
gians in Cologne have printed it, and they say 
that Johann PfefFerkorn wrote it.' And I said, 
'What will you do about it? Will you not vindi- 
cate yourself? ' And he answered, 'Certainly not. 
I have been vindicated long ago, and can spend 
no time on these follies. My eyes are too weak 
for me to waste their strength on matters which 
are not useful.' " 

We next find Hutten high in the favor of the 
Emperor Maximilian, by whose order he was 
crowned poet-laureate of Germany. The wreath 
of laurel was woven by the fair hands of Constance 
Peutinger, who was called the handsomest girl in 
Germany, and with great ceremony she put this 
wreath on his head in the presence of the Emperor^ 
at Mainz. 

Now, for the first time, Hutten seems to have 
thought seriously of marriage. He writes to a 
friend, Friedrich Fischer : " I am overcome with a 
longing for rest, that I may give myself to art. 
For this, I need a wife who shall take care of me. 
You know my ways. I cannot be alone, not even 
by night. In vain they talk to me of the pleasures 
of celibacy. To me it is loneliness and monotony. 
I was not born for that. I must have a being 



226 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

who can lead me from sorrows — yes, even from 
my graver studies; one with whom I can joke and 
play, and carry on light and happy conversations, 
that the sharpness of sorrow may be blunted and 
the heat of anger made mild. Give me a wife, 
dear Friedrich, and you know what kind of one I 
want. She must be young, pretty, well educated, 
serene, tender, patient. Money enough give her, 
but not too much. For riches I do not seek ; and 
as for blood and birth, she is already noble to 
whom Hutten gives his hand." 

A young woman — Cunigunde Glauburg — was 
found, and she seemed to meet all requirements. 
But the mother of the bride was not pleased with 
the arrangement. Hutten was a " dangerous man," 
she said, " a revolutionist." " I hope," said Hut- 
ten, " that when she comes to know me, and finds 
in me nothing restless, nothing mutinous, my 
studies full of humor and wit, that she will look 
more kindly on me." To a brother of Cunigunde 
he writes: " Hutten has not conquered many 
cities, like some of these iron-eaters, but through 
many lands has wandered with the fame of his 
name. He has not slain his thousands, like 
those, but may be none the less loved for that. 
He does not stalk about on yard-long shin-bones, 



APPEAL TO LEO THE TENTH. 227 

nor does his gigantic figure frighten travelers; 
but in strength of spirit he yields to none. He 
does not glow with the splendor of beauty, but 
he dares flatter himself that his soul is worthy of 
love. He does not talk big nor swell himself with 
boasting, but simply, openly, honestly acts and 
speaks." 

But all his wooing came to naught; another 
man wedded the fair Cunigunde, and the coming 
storm of Romish wrath left Hutten no opportu- 
nity to turn his attention elsewhere. 

The old Pope was now dead, and one of the 
famous family of Medici, in Florence, had suc- 
ceeded him as Leo the Tenth. Leo was kindly 
disposed toward the Humanist studies, and Hut- 
ten, as poet of the Humanists, addressed to him 
directly a remarkable appeal, which made the 
turning-point in his life, for it placed him openly 
among those who resisted the Pope. 

Recounting to the new Pope Leo all the usur- 
pations which in his judgment had been made, 
one by one, by his predecessors — all the robberies, 
impositions, and abuses of the Papacy, from the 
time of Constantine down — he appeals to Leo, as 
a wise man and a scholar, to restore stolen power 
and property, to correct all abuses, to abandon all 



228 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

temporal power, and become once more the simple 
Bishop of Rome. " For there can never be peace 
between the robber and the robbed till the stolen 
goods are returned." 

Now, for the first time, the work of Luther came 
to Hutten's attention. The disturbances at Wit- 
tenberg were in the beginning treated by all as a 
mere squabble of the monks. To Leo the Tenth 
this discussion had no further interest than this: 
" Brother Martin," being a scholar, was most prob- 
ably right. To Hutten, who cared nothing for 
doctrinal points, it had no significance; the more 
monkish strifes the better — "the sooner would the 
enemies eat each other up." 

But now Hutten came to recognize in Luther the 
apostle of freedom of thought, and in that struggle 
of the Reformation he found a nobler cause than 
that of the Humanists — in Luther a greater than 
Reuchlin. And Hutten never did things by 
halves. He entered into the warfare heart and 
soul. In 1520 he published his " Roman Trinity," 
his gage of battle against Rome. 

He now, like Luther, began to draw his inspira- 
tion, as well as his language, not from the classics, 
but from the New Testament. A new motto he 
took for himself, one which was henceforth ever 



"J HAVE DARED IT!" 229 

on his lips, and which appears again and again 
in his later writings: "Jada est alea" ("the die 
is cast"); or, in the stronger German, in which he 
more often gave it, "Ich hab's gewagt" ("I have 
dared it"). 

" Auf dasz ichs nit anheb umsunst 
Wolauf, wir haben Gottes Gunst ; 
Wer wollt in solchem bleiben dheim? 
Ich hab's gewagt! das ist mein Reim! " 

" Der niemand grossern Schaden bringt, 
Dann mir als noch die Sach gelingt 
Dahin mich Gott und Wahrheit bringt, 
Ich hab's gewagt." 

"So breche ich hindurch, durch breche ich, oder ich falle, 
Kampfend, nach dem ich einmal geworfen das Loos ! " 

( So break I through the ranks else I die fighting — 
Fighting, since once and forever the die I have cast ! ) 

In this motto we have the keynote to his fiery 
and earnest nature. Convinced that a cause was 
right, he knew no bounds of caution or policy; he 
feared no prison or death. " I have dared it ! " 

"To all free men of Germany," he speaks. 
" Their tyranny will not last forever ; unless all 
signs deceive me, their power is soon to fail — for 
already is the axe laid at the root of the tree, and 
that tree which bears not good fruit will be rooted 
out, and the vineyard of the Lord will be purified. 



230 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

That you shall not only hope, but soon see with 
your eyes. Meanwhile, be of good cheer, you men 
of Germany. Not weak, not untried, are your 
leaders in the struggle for freedom. Be not afraid, 
neither weaken in the midst of the battle, for 
broken at last is the strength of the enemy, for the 
cause is righteous, and the rage of tyranny is 
already at its height. Courage, and farewell ! 
Long live freedom ! I have dared it!" ("Lebe die 
Freiheit; ich hab's gewagt") 

Warnings and threats innumerable came to 
Hutten, from enemies who feared and halted, from 
friends who were fearful and trembling; but he 
never flinched. He had " dared it." The bull of 
excommunication which came from the Pope 
frightened him no more than it did Luther. But 
at last he was compelled to retire from the cities, 
and he took up his abode in the Castle of Ebern- 
burg, with Franz von Sickingen. 

Franz von Sickingen was one of the great nobles 
of Germany, and he ruled over a region in the 
bend of the Rhine between Worms and Bingen. 
His was one of the bravest characters of that 
time. A knight of the highest order, he became 
a disciple of Hutten and Luther, and on his help 
was the greatest reliance placed by the friends of 



FROM LITERATURE TO RELIGION, 231 

the growing reform. His strong Castle of Ebern- 
burg, on the hills above Bingen, was the refuge 
of all who were persecuted by the authorities. 
The "Inn of Righteousness" ("Herberge von Ge- 
rechtigkeit"), the Ebernburg was called by Hutten. 

The Humanists who had stood with Hutten in 
the struggle between Reuchlin and Pfefferkorn saw 
with growing concern the gradual transfer of the 
field of battle from questions of literature to ques- 
tions of religion. Reuchlin, growing old and weak, 
wrote a letter, disavowing any sympathy with the 
new uprisings against the time-honored authority 
of the Church. This letter came into Hutten's 
hands, and, with all his reverence for his old friend 
and master, he could not keep silence. 

"Eternal Gods!" he writes. "What do I see? 
Have you sunk so deep in weakness and fear, 
Reuchlin! that you cannot endure blame even for 
those who have fought for you in time of danger? 
Through such shameful subservience do you hope 
to reconcile those to whom, if you were a man, you 
would never give a friendly greeting, so badly 
have they treated you? Yet reconcile them; and if 
there is no other way, go to Rome and kiss the feet 
of Leo, and then write against us. Yet you shall 
see that, against your will, and against the will of 



232 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

all the godless courtesans, we shall shake off the 
shameful yoke, and free ourselves from slavery. 
I am ashamed that I have written so much for you 
— have done so much for you, — since when it 
comes to action you have made such a miserable 
exit from the ranks. From me shall you know 
henceforth that whether you fight in Luther's 
cause or throw yourself at the feet of the Bishop 
of Rome, I shall never trust you more." The poor 
old man, thus harassed on all sides, found no 
longer any rest or comfort in his studies. Worn- 
out in body, and broken in spirit, he soon died. 

The great source of Luther's hold on Germany 
lay in his direct appeal to the common people. For 
this he translated the Bible into German — even 
now the noblest version of the Bible in existence. 
For in translating a work of inspiration the intu- 
ition of a man like Luther, as Bayard Taylor has 
said, counts for more than the combined scholar- 
ship of a hundred men learned in the Greek and 
Hebrew. "The clear insight of one prophet is 
better than the average judgment of forty-seven 
scribes." The German language was then strug- 
gling into existence, and scholars considered it 
beneath their notice. It was fixed for all time by 
Luther's Bible. Luther often spent a week on a 



"NOW CRY I TO THE FATHERLAND." 233 

single verse to find and fix the idiomatic German. 
" It is easy to plow when the field is cleared," he 
said. " We must not ask the letters of the Latin 
alphabet how to speak German, but the mother in 
the kitchen and the plowman in the field, that 
they may know that the Bible is speaking Ger- 
man, and speaking to them. Out of the abundance 
of the heart the mouth speaketh. No German 
peasant would understand that. We must make 
it plain to him. l Wess das Herz voll ist, dess geht 
der Mund uber.' (' Whose heart is full, his mouth 
runs over/) " 

The same influence acted on Hutten. All his 
previous writings were in Latin, and were directed 
to scholars only. Henceforth he wrote the language 
of the Fatherland, and his appeals to the people 
were in language which the people could and did 
read. No Reformation ever came while only the 
learned and the noble were in the secret of it. 

" Latein, ich vor geschrieben hab 
Das war eiu jeden nicht bekannt ; 
Jetzt schrei ich an das Vaterland, 
Teutsch Nation in ihrer Sprach 
Zu bringen diesen Dingen Rach." 

( "For Latin wrote I hitherto, 

"Which common people did not know. 
Now cry I to the Fatherland, 



234 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

The German people, in their tongue, 
Redress to bring for all these wrongs.") 

A song for the people he now wrote, the " New 
Song of Ulrich von Hutten," a song which stands 
with Luther's "Ein feste Burg" in the history of 
the Reformation : 

"Ich hab's gewagt mit Sinnen, 
Und trag des noch kein Reu, 
Mag ich nit dran gewinnen, 
Noch muss man spiiren Treu. 

"Darrnit ich mein 

Mit eim allein, 
Wenn Man es wolt erkennen 

Dem Land zu gut 

"Wiewol man thut 
Ein Pfafienfeind mich nennen." 

Part of this may be freely translated — 

"With open eyes I have dared it; 
And cherish no regret, 
And though I fail to conquer, 
The Truth is with me yet." 

Hutten's dream in these days was of a league of 
nobles, cities, and people, aided by the Emperor 
if possible, against the Emperor if necessary, which 
should by force of arms forever free Germany from 
the rule of the Pope. Luther had little faith in the 
power of force. "What Hutten wishes," he wrote 



" THE WINDS OF FREEDOM ABE BLOWING." 235 

to a friend, " you see. But I do not wish to strive 
for the Gospel with murder and violence. Through 
the power of the Word is the world subdued; 
through the Word the Church shall be preserved 
and freed. Even Antichrist shall be destroyed by 
the power of the Word." 

Now came the Great Diet at Worms, whither 
Luther was called before the Emperor to answer for 
his heretical teachings, and before which he stood 
firm and undaunted, a noble figure which has been 
a turning-point in history. " Here I stand. I can 
do nothing else. God help me." 

Hutten, on his sick-bed at Ebernburg, not far 
away, was full of wrath at the trial of Luther. 
" A wa}' ! " he shouted, " away from the clear foun- 
tains, ye filthy swine! Out of the sanctuary, ye 
accursed peddlers ! Touch no longer the altar with 
your desecrating hands. What have ye to do with 
the alms of our fathers, which were given for the 
poor and the Church, and you spend for splendor, 
pomp, and foolery, while the children suffer for 
bread? See you not that the wind of Freedom* is 
blowing? On two men not much depends. Know 
that there are many Luthers, many Huttens here. 
Should either of us be destroyed, still greater is 

*"Sehet ihr nicht^dasz die Luft der Freiheit -weht?" 



236 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

the danger that awaits you; for then, with those 
battling for freedom, the avengers of innocence 
will make common cause." 

I have wished, in writing this little sketch, that 
I could have a novelist's privilege of bringing out 
my hero happily at the end. I have hitherto had 
the struggles of a man living before his time to 
relate; the voice of one crying in the wilderness. 
If this were a romance, I might tell how, with 
Hutten's entreaties and Luther's exhortations, and 
under the wise management of Franz von Sickin- 
gen, the people banded together against foreign 
foes and foreign domination, and German unity, 
German freedom, and religious liberty were forever 
established in the Fatherland. But, alas ! the his- 
tory does not run in that way; at least not till 
a hundred years of war had bathed the land in 
blood. 

For Hutten henceforth I have only misery and 
failure to relate. The union of knights and cities 
resulted in a ruinous campaign of Franz von Sick- 
ingen against Treves. Sickingen's army was driven 
back by the Elector. His strong Castle of Land- 
stiihl was besieged by the Catholic princes, and 
cannon was used in this siege for the first time in 
history. The walls of Landstuhl, twenty-five feet 



FORCE OF ARMS HELPS NOT THE GOSPEL. 237 

thick, were battered down, and Sickingen himself 
was killed by the falling of a beam. The war was 
over, and nothing worthy had been accomplished. 

When Luther heard of the death of Sickingen, he 
wrote to a friend : " Yesterday I heard and read of 
Franz von Sickingen's true and sad history. God 
is a righteous but marvelous Judge. Sickingen's 
fall seems to me a verdict of the Lord, that 
strengthens me in the belief that the force of arms 
is to be kept far from matters of the Gospel." 

Hutten was driven from the Ebernburg. He was 
offered a high place in the service of the King of 
France ; but, as a true German, he refused it, and 
fled, penniless and sick, to Basle, in Switzerland. 

Here the great Humanist, Erasmus, reigned su- 
preme. Erasmus disavowed all sympathy with his 
former friend and fellow-student. He called Hutten 
a dangerous and turbulent man, and warned the 
Swiss against him. Erasmus had noticed, with 
horror, in those who had studied Greek, that the 
influence of Lutheranism was fatal to learning; 
that zeal for philology decreased as zeal for religion 
increased. Already Erasmus, like Reuchlin, was 
ranged on the side of the Pope. So, in letters and 
pamphlets, Erasmus attacked Hutten; and the 
poet was not slow in giving as good as he received. 



238 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

And this war between the Humanist and the Re- 
former gave great joy to the Obscurantists, who 
feared and hated them both. 

"Humanism," says Strauss, "was broad-minded 
but faint-hearted, and in none is this better seen 
than in Erasmus. Luther was a narrower man, 
but his unvarying purpose, never looking to left 
nor right, was his strength. Humanism is the 
broad mirror-like Ehine at Bingen. It must grow 
narrower and wilder before it can break through 
the mountains to the sea." 

Repulsed by Erasmus at Basle, Hutten fled to 
Mulhausen. Attacked by assassins there, he left at 
midnight for Zurich, where he put himself under 
the protection of Ulrich Zwingli. In Zwingli, the 
purest, loftiest, and clearest of insight of all of the 
leaders of the Reformation, Hutten found a con- 
genial spirit. His health was now utterly broken. 
To the famous Baths of Pfaffers he went, in hope 
of release from pain. But the modern bath-houses 
of Ragatz were not built in those days, and the 
daily descent by a rope from above into the dark 
and dismal chasm was too much for his feeble 
strength. Then Zwingli sent him to a kindly 
friend, the Pastor Hans Schnegg, who lived on 
the little Island of Ufnau, in the Lake of Zurich. 




ULRICH ZWINGLI. 



THE PROTEST OF SPIRES. 241 

And here at Ufnau, worn out by his long, double 
conflict with the Pope and with disease, Ulrich von 
Hutten died in 1523, at the age of thirty-five. 
"He left behind him," wrote Zwingli, "nothing 
of worth. Books he had none; no money, and no 
property of any sort, except a pen." 

What was the value of this short and troubled 
life? Three hundred years ago it was easy to 
answer with Erasmus and the rest — Nothing. 
Hutten had denounced the Pope, and the Pope had 
crushed him. He had stirred up noble men to 
battle for freedom, and they, too, had been de- 
stroyed. Franz von Sickingen was dead. The 
league of the cities and princes had faded away 
forever. Luther was hidden in the Wartburg, no 
one knew where, and scarcely a trace of the Ref- 
ormation was left in Germany. Whatever Hutten 
had touched he had ruined. He had " dared it," 
and the force he had defied had crushed him in 
return. 

But, looking back over these centuries, the life 
of Hutten rises into higher prominence. His 
writings were seed in good ground. At his death 
the Reformation seemed hopeless. Six years later, 
at the second Diet of Spires, half Germany signed 



242 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF POETS. 

the protest which made us Protestants. "It was 
Luther alone who said no at the Diet of Worms. 
It was princes and people, cities and churches, who 
said no at the Diet of Spires." 

Hutten's dream of a United German people freed 
from the yoke of Rome was for three hundred 
years unrealized. For the Reformation sundered 
the German people and ruined the German Em- 
pire, and not till our day has German unity come 
to pass. But, as later reformers said, " It is better 
that Germany should be half German, than that it 
should be all Roman." 

For the true meaning of this conflict does not lie 
in any question of church against church or creed 
against creed, nor that worship in cathedrals with 
altars and incense and rich ceremony should give 
way to the simpler forms of the Lutheran litany. 
The issue was that of the growth of man. The 
" right of private interpretation " is the recognition 
of personal individuality. 

The death of Hutten was, after all, not untimely. 
He had done his work. His was the " voice of one 
crying in the wilderness." The head of John the 
Baptist lay on the charger before Jesus had fulfilled 
his mission. Arnold Winkelried, at Sempach, filled 
his body with Austrian spears before the Austrian 



RELIGION BELONGS TO MEN NOT MASSES. 243 

phalanx was broken. John Brown fell at Harper's 
Ferry before a blow was struck against slavery. 
Ulrich von Hutten had set every man, woman, 
and child in Germany to thinking of his relations 
to the Lord and to the Pope. His mission was 
completed ; and longer life for him, as Strauss has 
suggested, might have led to discord among the 
Reformers themselves. 

For this lover of freedom was intolerant of intol- 
erance. For fine points of doctrine he had only 
contempt. When the Lutherans began to treat 
as enemies all Reformers who did not with them 
subscribe to the Confession of Augsburg, Hutten's 
fiery pen would have repudiated this confession. 
For he fought for freedom of the spirit, not for the 
Lutheran confession. 

Had he remained in Switzerland, he would have 
been still less in harmony with the prevailing con- 
ditions. Not long after, Zwingli was slain in the 
wretched battle of Kappel, and, after him, the 
Swiss Reformation passed under the control of 
John Calvin. There can be no doubt that the 
stern pietist of Geneva would have burned Ulrich 
von Hutten with as calm a conscience as he did 
Michael Servetus. 

The idea of a united and uniform Church, wheth- 



244 A KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF P0ET8. 

er Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist, had little attrac- 
tion for Hutten. He was one of the first to realize 
that religion is individual; not collective. It is 
concerned with life, not with creeds or ceremonies. 
In the high sense, no man can follow or share the 
religion of another. His religion, whatever it may 
be, is his own. It is built up from his own thoughts 
and prayers and actions. It is the expression of 
his own ideals. Only forms can be transferred 
unchanged from man to man, from generation to 
generation; never realities. For whatever is real 
to a man becomes part of him and partakes of his 
growth, and is modified by his personality. 

Hutten was buried where he died, on the little 
island of Ufnau, in the Lake of Zurich, at the foot 
of the mighty Alps. And some of his old associ- 
ates put over his grave a commemorative stone. 
Afterwards, the monks of the abbey of Einsiedeln, 
in Schwytz came to the island and removed the 
stone, and obliterated all traces of the grave. 

It was well that they did so ; for now the whole 
green island of Ufnau is his alone, and it is his 
worthy sepulcher. 



NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 



NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE.* 

IN pleading for nature-study as a means of moral 
culture, I do not wish to make an overstate- 
ment, nor to claim for such study any occult or 
exclusive power. It is not for us to say, so much 
nature in the schools, so much virtue in the schol- 
ars. The character of the teacher is a factor which 
must always be counted in. But the best teacher 
is the one that comes nearest to nature, the one 
who is most effective in developing individual 
wisdom. 

To seek knowledge is better than to have knowl- 
edge. Precepts of virtue are useless unless they are 
built into life. At birth, or before, " the gate of gifts 
is closed." It is the art of life, out of variant and 
contradictory materials passed down to us from our 
ancestors, to build up a coherent and effective indi- 
vidual character. 

The essence of character-building lies in action. 
The chief value of nature-study in character-build- 



* Read before the National Educational Association at Buffalo, New 
York, 1896. 

247 



248 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

ing is that, like life itself, it deals with realities. 
The experience of living is of itself a form of nature- 
study. One must in life make his own observa- 
tions, frame his own inductions, and apply them in 
action as he goes along. The habit of finding out 
the best thing to do next, and then doing it, is 
the basis of character. A strong character is built 
up by doing, not by imitation, nor by feeling, nor 
by suggestion. Nature-study, if it be genuine, is 
essentially doing. This is the basis of its effective- 
ness as a moral agent. To deal with truth is nec- 
essary, if we are to know truth when we see it in 
action. To know truth precedes all sound moral- 
ity. There is a great impulse to virtue in knowing 
something well. To know it well is to come into 
direct contact with its facts or laws, to feel that its 
qualities and forces are inevitable. To do this is 
the essence of nature-study in all its forms. 

The claim has been made that history treats of 
the actions of men, and that it therefore gives the 
student the basis of right conduct. But neither of 
these propositions is true. History treats of the 
records of the acts of men and nations. But it does 
not involve the action of the student himself. The 
men and women who act in history are not the 
boys and girls we are training. Their lives are 



TEACHING TRUTH BY LYING STORIES. 249 

developed through their own efforts, not by con- 
templation of the efforts of others. They work out 
their problem of action more surely by dissecting 
frogs or hatching butterflies than by what we tell 
them of Lycurgus or Joan of Arc. Their reason 
for virtuous action must lie in their own knowledge 
of what is right, not in the fact that Lincoln, or 
Washington, or William Tell, or some other half- 
mythical personage would have done so and so 
under like conditions. 

The rocks and shells, the frogs and lilies always 
tell the absolute truth. Association with these, un- 
der right direction, will build up a habit of truth- 
fulness, which the lying story of the cherry-tree 
is powerless to effect. If history is to be made an 
agency for moral training, it must become a nature- 
study. It must be the study of original documents. 
When it is pursued in this way it has the value of 
other nature-studies. But it is carried on under 
great limitations. Its manuscripts are scarce, while 
every leaf on the tree is an original document in 
botany. When a thousand are used, or used up, the 
archives of nature are just as full as ever. 

From the intimate affinity with the problems 
of life, the problems of nature-study derive a large 
part of their value. Because life deals with reali- 



250 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

ties, the visible agents of the overmastering fates, 
it is well that our children should study the real, 
rather than the conventional. Let them come in 
contact with the inevitable, instead of the " made- 
up," with laws and forces which can be traced in 
objects and forms actually before them, rather than 
with those which seem arbitrary or which remain 
inscrutable. To use concrete illustrations, there is 
a greater moral value in the study of magnets than 
in the distinction between shall and will, in the 
study of birds or rocks than in that of diacritical 
marks or postage-stamps, in the development of a 
frog than in the longer or the shorter catechism, 
in the study of things than in the study of ab- 
stractions. There is doubtless a law underlying 
abstractions and conventionalities, a law of cate- 
chisms, or postage-stamps, or grammatical sole- 
cisms, but it does not appear to the student. Its 
consideration does not strengthen his impression 
of inevitable truth. There is the greatest moral 
value, as well as intellectual value, in the inde- 
pendence that comes from knowing, and knowing 
that one knows and why he knows. This gives 
spinal column to character, which is not found in 
the flabby goodness of imitation or the hysteric 
virtue of suggestion. Knowing what is right, and 



MAN A MACHINE FOB ACTION 251 

why it is right, before doing it is the basis of great- 
ness of character. 

The nervous system of the animal or the man is 
essentially a device to make action effective and to 
keep it safe. The animal is a machine in action. 
Toward the end of motion all other mental pro- 
cesses tend. All functions of the brain, all forms 
of nerve impulse are modifications of the simple 
reflex action, the automatic transfer of sensations 
derived from external objects into movements of 
the body. 

The sensory nerves furnish the animal or man all 
'knowledge of the external world. The brain, sit- 
ting in absolute darkness, judges these sensations, 
and sends out corresponding impulses to action. 
The sensory nerves are the brain's sole teachers; 
the motor nerves, and through them the muscles, 
are the brain's only servants. The untrained brain 
learns its lessons poorly, and its commands are 
vacillating and ineffective. In like manner, the 
brain which has been misued, shows its defects in 
ill-chosen actions — the actions against which Na- 
ture protests through her scourge of misery. In 
this fact, that nerve alteration means ineffective 
action, lying brain, and lying nerves, rests the 
great argument for temperance, the great argu- 



252 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

ment against all forms of nerve tampering, from 
the coffee habit to the cataleptic "revival of re- 
ligion." 

The senses are intensely practical in their relation 
to life. The processes of natural selection make 
and keep them so. Only those phases of reality 
which our ancestors could render into action are 
shown to us by our senses. If we can do nothing 
in any case, we know nothing about it. The senses 
tell us essential truth about rocks and trees, food 
and shelter, friends and enemies. They answer no 
problems in chemistry. They tell us nothing about 
atom or molecule. They give us no ultimate facts. 
Whatever is so small that we cannot handle it is 
too small to be seen. Whatever is too distant to be 
reached is not truthfully reported. The "X-rays" 
of light we cannot see, because our ancestors could 
not deal with them. The sun and stars, the clouds 
and the sky are not at all what they appear to be. 
The truthfulness of the senses fails as the square of 
the distance increases. Were it not so, we should be 
smothered by truth ; we should be overwhelmed by 
the multiplicity of our own sensations, and truth- 
ful response in action would become impossible. 
Hyperesthesia of any or all of the senses is a source 
of confusion, not of strength. It is essentially a 






WHAT THE WILL HOLDS DOWN, 253 

phase of disease, and it shows itself in ineffective- 
ness, not in increased power. 

Besides the actual sensations, the so-called reali- 
ties, the brain retains also the sensations which 
have been, and which are not wholly lost. Mem- 
ory-pictures crowd the mind, mingling with pic- 
tures which are brought in afresh by the senses. 
The force of suggestion causes the mental states or 
conditions of one person to repeat themselves in 
another. Abnormal conditions of the brain itself 
furnish another series of feelings with which the 
brain must deal. Moreover, the brain is charged 
with impulses to action passed on from generation 
to generation, surviving because they are useful. 
With all these arises the necessity for choice as a 
function of the mind. The mind must neglect or 
suppress all sensations which it cannot weave into 
action. The dog sees nothing that does not belong 
to its little world. The man in search of mush- 
rooms "tramples down oak-trees in his walks." To 
select the sensations that concern us is the basis of 
the power of attention. The suppression of unde- 
sired actions is a function of the will. To find data 
for choice among the possible motor responses is a 
function of the intellect. Intellectual persistency is 
the essence of individual character. 



254 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

As the conditions of life become more complex, it 
becomes necessary for action to be more carefully 
selected. Wisdom is the parent of virtue. Knowing 
what should be done logically precedes doing it. 
Good impulses and good intentions do not make 
action right or safe. In the long run, action is 
tested not by its motives, but by its results. 

The child, when he comes into the world, has 
everything to learn. His nervous system is charged 
with tendencies to reaction and impulses to motion, 
which have their origin in survivals from ancestral 
experience. Exact knowledge, by which his own 
actions can be made exact, must come through his 
own experience. The experience of others must be 
expressed in terms of his own before it becomes wis- 
dom. Wisdom, as I have elsewhere said, is know- 
ing what it is best to do next. Virtue is doing it. 
Doing right becomes habit, if it is pursued long 
enough. It becomes a " second nature," or, we may 
say, a higher heredity. The formation of a higher 
heredity of wisdom and virtue, of knowing right 
and doing right, is the basis of character-building. 

The moral character is based on knowing the 
best, choosing the best, and doing the best. It 
cannot be built up on imitation. By imitation, 
suggestion, and conventionality the masses are 



"WHAT CAN I DO WITH IT?" 255 

formed and controlled. To build up a man is a 
nobler process, demanding materials and methods 
of a higher order. The growth of man is the asser- 
tion of individuality. Only robust men can make 
history. Others may adorn it, disfigure it, or vul- 
garize it. 

The first relation of the child to external things 
is expressed in this: What can I do with it? 
What is its relation to me? The sensation goes 
over into thought, the thought into action. Thus 
the impression of the object is built into the little 
universe of his mind. The object and the action it 
implies are closely associated. As more objects are 
apprehended, more complex relations arise, but the 
primal condition remains — What can I do with 
it? Sensation, thought, action — this is the natural 
sequence of each completed mental process. As 
volition passes over into action, so does science 
into art, knowledge into power, wisdom into virtue. 

By the study of realities wisdom is built up. In 
the relations of objects he can touch and move, the 
child comes to find the limitations of his powers, 
the laws that govern phenomena, and to which his 
actions must be in obedience. So long as he deals 
with realities, these laws stand in their proper rela- 
tion. " So simple, so natural, so true," says Agassiz. 



256 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

" This is the charm of dealing with Nature herself. 
She brings us back to absolute truth so often as we 
wander." 

So long as a child is lead from one reality to 
another, never lost in words or in abstractions, so 
long this natural relation remains. What can I do 
with it? is the beginning of wisdom. What is it 
to me ? is the basis of personal virtue. 

While a child remains about the home of his 
boyhood, he knows which way is north and which 
is east. He does not need to orientate himself, be- 
cause in his short trips he never loses his sense of 
space direction. But let him take a rapid journey 
in the cars or in the night, and he may find him- 
self in strange relations. The sun no longer rises 
in the east, the sense of reality in directions is gone, 
and it is a painful effort for him to join the new 
impressions to the old. The process of orientation 
is a difficult one, and if facing the sunrise in the 
morning were a deed of necessity in his religion, 
this deed would not be accurately performed. 

This homely illustration applies to the child. He 
is taken from his little world of realities, a world in 
which the sun rises in the east, the dogs bark, the 
grasshopper leaps, the water falls, and the rela- 
tion of cause and effect appear plain and natural. 



THE HIGHER HEREDITY. 257 

In these simple relations moral laws become evi- 
dent. " The burnt child dreads the fire," and this 
dread shows itself in action. The child learns what 
to do next, and to some extent does it. By practice 
in personal responsibility in little things, he can be 
led to wisdom in large ones. For the power to do 
great things in the moral world comes from doing 
the right in small things. It is not often that a man 
who knows that there is a right does the wrong. 
Men who do wrong are either ignorant that there is 
a right, or else they have failed in their orientation 
and look upon right as wrong. It is the clinching 
of good purposes with good actions that makes the 
man. This is the higher heredity that is not the 
gift of father or mother, but is the man's own work 
on himself. 

The impression of realities is the basis of sound 
morals as well as of sound judgment. By adding 
near things to near, the child grows in knowledge. 
"Knowledge set in order" is science. Nature-study 
is the beginning of science. It is the science of the 
child. To the child training in methods of acquir- 
ing knowledge is more valuable than knowledge 
itself. In general, throughout life sound methods 
are more valuable than sound information. Self- 
direction is more important than innocence. The 



258 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

fool may be innocent. Only the sane and wise can 
be virtuous. 

It is the function of science to find out the real 
nature of the universe. Its purpose is to eliminate 
the personal equation and the human equation in 
statements of truth. By methods of precision of 
thought and instruments of precision in observa- 
tion, it seeks to make our knowledge of the small, 
the distant, the invisible, the mysterious as accurate 
as our knowledge of the common things men have 
handled for ages. It seeks to make our knowledge 
of common things exact and precise, that exactness 
and precision may be translated into action. The 
ultimate end of science, as well as its initial im- 
pulse, is the regulation of human conduct. To 
make right action possible and prevalent is the 
function of science. The " world as it is " is the 
province of science. In proportion as our actions 
conform to the conditions of the world as it is, do 
we find the world beautiful, glorious, divine. The 
truth of the " world as it is " must be the ultimate 
inspiration of art, poetry, and religion. The world 
as men have agreed to say it is, is quite another 
matter. The less our children hear of this, the 
less they will have to unlearn in their future de- 
velopment. 



THE LOST DIRECTION OF SUNRISE. 259 

When a child is taken from nature to the schools, 
he is usually brought into an atmosphere of con- 
ventionality. Here he is not to do, but to imitate; 
not to see, nor to handle, nor to create, but to remem- 
ber. He is, moreover, to remember not his own 
realities, but the written or spoken ideas of others. 
He is dragged through a wilderness of grammar, 
with thickets of diacritical marks, into the desert of 
metaphysics. He is taught to do right, not because 
right action is in the nature of things, the nature of 
himself and the things about him, but because he 
will be punished somehow if he does not. 

He is given a medley of words without ideas- 
He is taught declensions and conjugations without 
number in his own and other tongues. He learns 
things easily by rote ; so his teachers fill him with 
rote-learning. Hence, grammar and language have 
become stereotyped as teaching without a thought 
as to whether undigested words may be intellectual 
poison. And as the good heart depends on the 
good brain, undigested ideas become moral poison 
as well. No one can tell how much of the bad 
morals and worse manners of the conventional 
college boy of the past has been due to intellectual 
dyspepsia from undigested words. 

In such manner the child is bound to lose his 



260 NATUEE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

orientation as to the forces which surround him. 
If he does not recover it, he will spend his life in a 
world of unused fancies and realities. Nonsense 
will seem half truth, and his appreciation of truth 
will be vitiated by lack of clearness of definition — 
by its close relation to nonsense. 

That this is no slight defect can be shown in 
every community. There is no intellectual craze so 
absurd as not to have a following among educated 
men and women. There is no scheme for the reno- 
vation of the social order so silly that educated 
men will not invest their money in it. There is no 
medical fraud so shameless that educated men will 
not give it their certificate. There is no nonsense 
so unscientific that men called educated will not 
accept it as science. 

It should be a function of the schools to build up 
common sense. Folly should be crowded out of the 
schools. We have furnished costly lunatic asylums 
for its accommodation. That our schools are in a 
degree responsible for current follies, there can be 
no doubt. We have many teachers who have never 
seen a truth in their lives. There are many who 
have never felt the impact of an idea. There are 
many who have lost their own orientation in their 
youth, and who have never since been able to point 



OBEDIENCE TO SEALED ORDERS. 261 

out the sunrise to others. It is no extravagance of 
language to say that diacritical marks lead to the 
cocaine habit; nor that the ethics of metaphysics 
points the way to the Higher Foolishness. There 
are many links in the chain of decadence, but its 
finger-posts all point downward. 

"Three roots bear up Dominion — Knowledge, 
Will, the third, Obedience." This statement, which 
Lowell applies to nations, belongs to the individual 
man as well. It is written in the structure of his 
brain — knowledge, volition, action, — and all three 
elements must be sound, if action is to be safe or 
effective. 

But obedience must be active, not passive. The 
obedience of the lower animals is automatic, and 
therefore in its limits measurably perfect. Lack of 
obedience means the extinction of the race. Only 
the obedient survive, and hence comes about obe- 
dience to " sealed orders," obedience by reflex action, 
in which the will takes little part. 

In the early stages of human development, the 
instincts of obedience were dominant. Great among 
these is the instinct of conventionality, by which 
each man follows the path others have found safe. 
The Church and the State, organizations of the 
strong, have assumed the direction of the weak. It 



262 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE, 

has often resulted that the wiser this direction, the 
greater the weakness it was called on to control. 
The " sealed orders " of human institutions took 
the place of the automatism of instinct. Against 
"sealed orders" the individual man has been in 
constant protest. The "warfare of science" was 
part of this long struggle. The Reformation, the 
revival of learning, the growth of democracy, are 
all phases of this great conflict. 

The function of democracy is not good govern- 
ment. If that were all, it would not deserve the 
efforts spent on it. Better government than any 
king or congress or democracy has yet given could 
be had in simpler and cheaper ways. The automa- 
tic scheme of competitive examinations would give 
us better rulers at half the present cost. Even an 
ordinary intelligence office, or " statesman's employ- 
ment bureau," would serve us better than conven- 
tions and elections. But a people which could be 
ruled in that way, content to be governed well by 
forces outside itself, would not be worth the saving. 
But this is not the point at issue. Government too 
good, as well as too bad, may have a baneful influ- 
ence on men. Its character is a secondary matter. 
The purpose of self-government is to intensify indi- 
vidual responsibility ; to promote abortive attempts 



LIFE, THE OLDEST AND BEST UNIVERSITY. 263 

at wisdom, through which true wisdom may come 
at last. Democracy is nature-study on a grand 
scale. The republic is a huge laboratory of civics, 
a laboratory in which strange experiments are 
performed ; but by which, as in other laboratories, 
wisdom may arise from experience, and having 
arisen, may work itself out into virtue. 

" The oldest and best-endowed university in the 
world," Dr. Parkhurst tells us, " is Life itself. Prob- 
lems tumble easily apart in the field that refuse to 
give up their secret in the study, or even in the 
closet. Reality is what educates us, and reality 
never comes so close to us, with all its powers of 
discipline, as when we encounter it in action. In 
books we find Truth in black and white; but in the 
rush of events we see Truth at work. It is only 
when Truth is busy and we are ourselves mixed up 
in its activities that we learn to know of how much 
we are capable, or even the power by which these 
capabilities can be made over into effect." 

Mr. Wilbur F. Jackman has well said : " Children 
always start with imitation, and very few people 
ever get beyond it. The true moral act, however, 
is one performed in accordance with a known law 
that is just as natural as the law which determines 
which way a stone shall fall. The individual be- 



264 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

conies moral in the highest sense when he chooses 
to obey this law by acting in accordance with it." 
Conventionality is not morality, and may co-exist 
with vice as well as with virtue. Obedience has 
little permanence unless it be intelligent obedience. 

It is, of course, true that wrong information may 
lead sometimes to right action, as falsehood may 
secure obedience to a natural law which would 
otherwise have been violated. But in the long run 
men and nations pay dearly for every illusion they 
cherish. For every sick man healed at Denver or 
Lourdes, ten well men may be made sick. Faith 
cure and patent medicines feed on the same vic- 
tim. For every Schlatter who is worshiped as a 
saint, some equally harmless lunatic will be stoned 
as a witch. This scientific age is beset by the non- 
science which its altruism has made safe. The 
development of the common sense of the people 
has given security to a vast horde of follies, which 
would be destroyed in the unchecked competition 
of life. It is the soundness of our age which has 
made what we call its decadence possible. It is the 
undercurrent of science which has given security 
to human life, a security which obtains for fools as 
well as for sages. 

For protection against all these follies which so 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF DESPAIR, 265 

soon fall into vices, or decay into insanity, we must 
look to the schools. A sound recognition of cause 
and effect in human affairs is our best safeguard. 
The old common sense of the " un-high-schooled 
man," aided by instruments of precision, and di- 
rected by logic, must be carried over into the 
schools. Clear thinking and clean acting, we be- 
lieve, are results of the study of nature. When 
men have made themselves wise, in the wisdom 
which may be completed in action, they have never 
failed to make themselves good. "When men have 
become wise with the lore of others, the learning 
which ends in self, and does not spend itself in 
action, they have been neither virtuous nor hap- 
py. " Much learning is a weariness of the flesh." 
Thought without action ends in intense fatigue of 
soul, the disgust with all the "sorry scheme of 
things entire," which is the mark of the unwhole- 
some and insane philosophy of Pessimism. This 
philosophy finds its condemnation in the fact that 
it has never yet been translated into pure and 
helpful life. 

With our children, the study of words and 
abstractions alone may, in its degree, produce the 
same results. Nature-studies have long been valued 
as a " means of grace," because they arouse the en- 



266 NATURE-STUDY AND MORAL CULTURE. 

thusiasm, the love of work which belongs to open- 
eyed youth. The child blase with moral precepts 
and irregular conjugations turns with delight to 
the unrolling of ferns and the song of birds. There 
is a moral training in clearness and tangibility. 
An occult impulse to vice is hidden in all vague- 
ness and in all teachings meant to be heard but not 
to be understood. Nature is never obscure, never 
occult, never esoteric. She must be questioned in 
earnest, else she will not reply. But to every serious 
question she returns a serious answer. " Simple, 
natural, and true" should make the impression of 
simplicity and truth. Truth and virtue are but 
opposite sides of the same shield. As leaves pass 
over into flowers, and flowers into fruit, so are wis- 
dom, virtue, and happiness inseparably related. 



THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 



THE HIGHER SACRIFICE.* 

EACH man that lives is, in part, a slave, because 
he is a living being. This belongs to the defi- 
nition of life itself. Each creature must bend its 
back to the lash of its environment. We imagine 
life without conditions — life free from the pres- 
sure of insensate things outside us or within. But 
such life is the dream of the philosopher. We have 
never known it. The records of the life we know 
are full of concessions to such pressure. 

The vegetative part of life, that part which finds 
its expression in physical growth, and sustenance, 
and death, must always be slavery. The old primal 
hunger of the protoplasm rules over it all. Each of 
the myriad cells of which man is made must be fed 
and cared for. The perennial hunger of these cells 
he must stifle. This hunger began when life began. 
It will cease only when life ceases. It will last till 
the water of the sea is drained, the great lights are 
put out, and the useless earth is hung up empty in 
the archives of the universe. 



* Address to tne Graduating Class, Leland Stanford Jr. University, 
May 21, 1896. 



270 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

This old hunger the individual man must each 
day meet and satisfy. He must do this for himself; 
else, in the long run, it will not be done. If others 
help feed him, he must feed others in return. This 
return is not charity nor sacrifice; it is simply 
exchange of work. It is the division of labor in 
servitude. Directly or indirectly, each must pay 
his debt of life. There are a few, as the world goes, 
who in luxury or pauperism have this debt paid 
for them by others. But there are not many of 
these fugitive slaves. The number will never be 
great; for the lineage of idleness is never long nor 
strong. 

"When this debt is paid, the slave becomes the 
man. Nature counts as men only those who are 
free. Freedom springs from within. No outside 
power can give it. Board and lodging on the earth 
once paid, a man's resources are his own. These he 
can give or hold. By the fullness of these is he 
measured. All acquisitions of man, Emerson tells 
us, "are victories of the good brain and brave 
heart; the world belongs to the energetic, belongs 
to the wise. It is in vain to make a paradise but 
for good men." 

In the ancient lore of the Jews, so Rabbi Voor- 
sanger tells us, it is written, " Serve the Lord, not 



ONLY THE GODS CAN SERVE. 271 

as slaves hoping for reward, but as gods who will 
take no reward." The meaning of the old saying is 
this : Only the gods can serve. 

Those who have nothing have nothing to give. 
He who serves as a slave serves himself only. That 
he hopes for a reward shows that to himself his 
service is really given. To serve the Lord, accord- 
ing to another old saying, is to help one's fellow- 
men. The Eternal asks not of mortals that they 
assist Him with His earth. The tough old world 
has been His for centuries of centuries before it 
came to be ours, and we can neither make it nor 
mar it. We were not consulted when its founda- 
tions were laid in the deep. The waves and the 
storms, the sunshine and the song of birds need not 
our aid. They will take care of themselves. Life 
is the only material that is plastic in our hand. 
Only man can be helped by man. 

When they hung John Brown in Virginia, many 
said, you remember, that in resisting the Govern- 
ment he had thrown away his life, and would gain 
nothing for it. He could not, as Thoreau said at 
the time, get a vote of thanks or a pair of boots for 
his life. He could not get four-and-sixpence a day 
for being hung, take the year around. But he was 
not asking for a vote of thanks. It was not for 



272 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

the four-and-sixpence a day that he stood between 
brute force and its victims. It was to show men 
the nature of slavery. It was to help his fellow- 
citizens to read the story of their institutions in the 
light of history. " You can get more," Thoreau 
went on to say, " in your market [at Concord] for a 
quart of milk than you can for a quart of blood ; 
but yours is not the market heroes carry their 
blood to." The blood of heroes is not sold by the 
quart. The great, strong, noble, and pure of this 
world, those who have made our race worthy to be 
called men, have not been paid by the day or by 
the quart ; not by riches, nor fame, nor power, nor 
anything that man can give. Out of the fullness 
of their lives have they served the Lord. Out of 
the wealth of their resources have they helped their 
fellow-men. 

The great man cannot be a self-seeker. The 
greatness of a Napoleon or an Alexander is the 
greatness of gluttony. It is slavery on a grand 
scale. What men have done for their own glory 
or aggrandizement has left no permanent impress. 
"I have carried out nothing," says the warrior, 
Sigurd Slembe. " I have not sown the least gram 
nor laid one stone upon another to witness that I 
have lived." Napoleon could have said as much, 



THE TRAGEDY OF GREATNESS. 273 

if, like Sigurd, he had stood "upon his own grave 
and heard the great bell ring." The tragedy of 
the Isle of St. Helena lay not in the failure of 
effort, but in the futility of the aim to which effort 
was directed. There was no tragedy of the Isle 
of Patrnos. 

What such men have torn down remains torn 
down. All this would soon have fallen of itself; for 
that which has life in it cannot be destroyed by 
force. But what such men have built has fallen 
when their hands have ceased to hold it up. The 
names history cherishes are those of men of another 
type. Only " a man too simply great to scheme for 
his proper self" is great enough to become a pillar 
of the ages. 

It is part of the duty of higher education to build 
up ideals of noble freedom. It is not for help in 
the vegetative work of life that you go to college. 
You are just as good a slave without it. You can 
earn your board and lodging without the formality 
of culture. The training of the college will make 
your power for action greater, no doubt; but it will 
also magnify your needs. The debt of life a scholar 
has to pay is greater than that paid by the clown. 
And the higher sacrifice the scholar may be called 
upon to make grows with the increased fullness of 



274 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

his life. Greater needs go with greater power, and 
both mean greater opportunity for sacrifice. 

In the days you have been with us you should 
have formed some ideals. You should have bound 
these ideals together with the chain of " well-spent 
yesterdays," the higher heredity which comes not 
from your ancestors, but which each man must 
build up for himself. You should have done some- 
thing in the direction of the life of higher sacrifice, 
the life that from the fullness of its resources can 
have something to give. 

Such sacrifice is not waste, but service; not 
spending, but accomplishing. Many men, and 
more women, spend their lives for others when 
others would have been better served if they had 
saved themselves. Mere giving is not service. 
"Charity that is irrational and impulsive giving, 
is a waste, whether of money or of life." " Char- 
ity creates half the misery she relieves ; she can- 
not relieve half the misery she creates." 

The men you meet as you leave these halls will 
not understand your ideals. They will not know 
that your life is not bound up in the present, but 
has something to ask or to give for the future. Till 
they understand you they will not yield you their 
sympathies. They may jeer at you because the 



THE WORLDS OF THOUGHT AND OF ACTION. 275 

whip they respond to leaves no mark upon you. 
They will try to buy you, because the Devil has 
always bid high for the lives of young men with 
ideals. A man in his market stands always above 
par. Slaves are his stock in trade. If a man of 
power can be had for base purposes, he can be sure 
of an immediate reward. You can sell your blood 
for its weight in milk, or for its weight in gold — 
whatever you choose, — if you are willing to put it 
up for sale. You can sell your will for the king- 
doms of the earth; and you will see, or seem to 
see, many of your associates making just such bar- 
gains. But in this be not deceived. No young man 
worthy of anything else ever sold himself to the 
Devil. These are dummy sales. The Devil puts 
his own up at auction in hope of catching others. 
If you fall into his hands, you had not far to fall. 
You were already ripe for his clutches. 

When a man steps forth from the college, he is 
tested once for all. It takes but a year or two to 
prove his mettle. In the college high ideals pre- 
vail, and the intellectual life is taken as a matter 
of course. In the world outside it appears other- 
wise, though the conditions of success are in fact 
just the same. It is not true, though it seems so, 
that the common life is a game of " grasping and 



276 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

griping, with a whine for mercy at the end of it." 
It is your own fault if you find it so. It is not 
true that the whole of man is occupied with the 
effort a to live just asking but to live, to live just 
begging but to be." The world of thought and the 
world of action are one in nature. In both truth 
and love are strength, and folly and selfishness 
are weakness. There is no confusion of right and 
wrong in the mind of the Fates. It is only in our 
poor bewildered slave intellects that evil passes for 
power. All about us in the press of life are real 
men, " whose fame is not bought nor sold at the 
stroke of a politician's pen." Such are the men in 
whose guidance the currents of history flow. 

The lesson of values in life it should be yours 
to teach, because it should be yours to know and 
to act. Men are better than they seem, and the 
hidden virtues of life appear when men have 
learned how to translate them into action. Men 
grasp and hoard material things because in their 
poverty of soul they know of nothing else to do. 
It is lack of training and lack of imagination, 
rather than total depravity, which gives our social 
life its sordid aspect. When a plant has learned 
the secret of flowers and fruit, it no longer goes 
on adding meaningless leaf on leaf. And as 



MAN'S WILL A FACTOR IN THE UNIVERSE. 277 

"flowers are only colored leaves, fruits only ripe 
ones," so are the virtues only perfected and ripened 
forms of those impulses which show themselves 
as vices. 

It is your relation to the overflow of power that 
determines the manner of man you are. Slave or 
god, it is for you to choose. Slave or god, it is for 
you to will. It is for such choice that will is devel- 
oped. Say what we may about the limitations of 
the life of man, they are largely self-limitations. 
Hemmed in is human life by the force of the Fates; 
but the will of man is one of the Fates, and can 
take its place by the side of the rest of them. The 
man who can will is a factor in the universe. Only 
the man who can will can serve the Lord at all, 
and by the same token, hoping for no reward. 

Likewise is love a factor in the universe. Power 
is not strength of body or mind alone. One who 
is poor in all else, may be rich in sympathy and 
responsiveness. " They also serve who only stand 
and wait." 

In a recent number of The Dial, Mr. W. P. Reeves 
tells us the tale, half-humorous, half-allegorical, of 
the decadence of a scholar. According to this story, 
one Thomson was a college graduate, full of high 
notions of the significance of life and" the duties 



278 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

and privileges of the scholar. With these ideals 
he went to Germany, that he might strengthen 
them and use them for the benefit of his fellow- 
men. He spent some years in Germany, filling 
his mind with all that German philosophy could 
give. Then he came home, to turn his philosophy 
into action. To do this, he sought a college profes- 
sorship. 

This he found it was not easy to secure. Nobody 
cared for him or his message. The authority of 
" wise and sober Germany " was not recognized in 
the institutions of America, and he found that 
college professorships were no longer " plums to be 
picked " by whomsoever should ask for them. The 
reverence the German professor commands is un- 
known in America. In Germany, the authority 
of wise men is supreme. Their words, when they 
speak, are heard with reverence and attention. In 
America, wisdom is not wisdom till the common 
man has examined it and pronounced it to be such. 
The conclusions of the scholar are revised by the 
daily newspaper. The readers of these papers care 
little for messages from Utopia. 

No college opened its doors to Thomson, and he 
saw with dismay that the life before him was one 
of discomfort and insignificance, his ideals having 



THE DECADENCE OF THOMSON. 279 

no exchangeable value in luxuries or comforts. 
Meanwhile, Thomson's early associates seemed to 
get on somehow. The world wanted their cheap 
achievements, though it did not care for him. 

Among these associates was one Wilcox, who 
became a politician, and, though small in abilities 
and poor in virtues, his influence among men 
seemed to be unbounded. The young woman who 
had felt an interest in Thomson's development, and 
to whom he had read his rejected verses and his 
uncalled-for philosophy, had joined herself to the 
Philistines, and yielded to their influence. She 
had become Wilcox's wife. His friends regarded 
Thomson's failure as a joke. He must not take 
himself too seriously, they said. A man should be 
in touch with his times. "Even Philistia," one 
said, "has its aesthetic ritual and pageantry." A 
wise man will not despise this ritual, because Phi- 
listinism, after all, is the life of the world. 

But Thomson held out. " I pledged my word in 
Germany," he said, " to teach nothing that I did not 
believe to be true. I must live up to this pledge." 
And so he sought for positions, and he failed to find 
them. Finally, he had a message from a friend 
that a professorship in a certain institution was 
vacant. This message said, "Cultivate Wilcox." 



280 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

So, in despair, Thomson began to cultivate Wilcox. 
He began to feel that Wilcox was a type of the 
world, a bad world, for which he was not responsi- 
ble. The world's servant he must be, if he received 
its wages. When he secured the coveted appoint- 
ment, through the political pull of Wilcox and the 
mild kindness of Mrs. Wilcox, he was ready to 
teach whatever was wanted of him, whether it was 
truth in Germany or not. He found that he could 
change his notions of truth. The Wilcox idea was 
that everything in America is all right just as it is. 
To this he found it easy to respond. His salary 
helped him to do so. And at last, the record says, 
he became " laudator temporis acti," one who praises 
the times that are past. As such, he took but little 
part in the times that are to be. 

So runs the allegory. How shall it be with 
you? There are many Thomsons among our 
scholars. There may be some such among you. 
When you pass from the world of thought you 
will find yourself in the world of action. The 
conditions are not changed, but they seem to be 
changed. How shall you respond to the seem- 
ing difference? Shall you give up the truth of 
high thinking for the appearance of speedy suc- 
cess? If you do this, it will not be because you 



CHARACTER AS "MADE IN GERMANY." 281 

are worldly-wise, but because you do not know the 
world. In your ignorance of men you may sell 
yourself cheaply. 

One must know life before he can know truth. 
He who will be a leader of men must first have the 
power to lead himself. The world is selfish and 
unsympathetic. But it is also sagacious. It rejects 
as worthless him who suffers decadence when he 
comes in contact with its vulgar cleverness. The 
natural man can look the world in the face. The 
true man will teach truth wherever he is, — not 
because he has pledged himself in Germany not to 
teach anything else, but because in teaching truth 
he is teaching himself. His life thus becomes gen- 
uine, and, sooner or later, the world will respond to 
genuineness in action. The world knows the value 
of genuineness, and it yields to that force wherever 
it is felt. " The world is all gates," says Emerson, 
" all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be 
struck." 

Thus, in the decadence of Thomson, it was not 
the times or the world or America that was at fault; 
it was Thomson himself. He had in him no life of 
his own. His character, like his microscope, " was 
made in Germany," and bore not his mark, but the 
stamp of the German factory. Truth was not made 



282 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

in Germany; and to know or to teach truth there 
must be a life behind it. The decadence of Thom- 
son was the appearance of the real Thomson from 
under the axioms and formulae his teachers had 
given him. 

Men do not fail because they are human. They 
are not human enough. Failure comes from lack 
of life. Only the man who has formed opinions 
of his own can have the courage of his convic- 
tions. Learning alone does not make a man strong. 
Strength in life will show itself in helpfulness, will 
show itself in sympathy, in sacrifice. " Great men," 
says Emerson, " feel that they are so by renounc- 
ing their selfishness and falling back on what is 
humane. They beat with the pulse and breathe 
with the lungs of nations." 

It is not enough to know truth; one must know 
men. It is not enough to know men; one must be 
a man. Only he who can live truth can know it. 
Only he who can live truth can teach it. "He 
could talk men over," says Carlyle of Mirabeau, 
" he could talk men over because he could act men 
over. At bottom that was it." 

And at bottom this is the source of all power 
and service. Not what a man knows, or what he 
can say; but what is he? what can he can do? 



"ENDLESS DIRGES TO DECAY." 283 

Not what he can do for his board and lodging, as 
the slave who is "hired for life"; but what can he 
do out of the fullness of his resources, the fullness 
of his helpfulness, the fullness of himself? The 
work the world will not let die was never paid for — 
not in fame, not in money, not in power. 

The decadence of literature, of which much is 
said to-day, is not due to the decadence of man. 
It is not the effect of the nerve strain of over- 
wrought generations born too late in the dusk of 
the ages. Its nature is this — that uncritical and 
untrained men have come into a heritage they 
have not earned. They will pay money to have 
their feeble fancy tickled. The decadence of liter- 
ature is the struggle of mountebanks to catch the 
public eye. There is money in the literature of 
decay, and those who work for money have " verily 
their reward." But these performances are not the 
work of men. They have no relation to literature, 
or art, or human life. These are not in decadence 
because imitations are sold on street-corners or 
tossed into our laps on railway trains. As well say 
that gold is in its decadence because brass can be 
burnished to look like it ; or that the sun is in his 
dotage because we have filled our gardens with 
Chinese lanterns. 



284 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

" No ray is dimmed, no atom worn, 
My oldest force is good as new 
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn 

Gives back the bending heavens in dew." 

Literature has never been paid for. It has never 
asked the gold nor the plaudits of the multitude. 
Job, and Hamlet, and Faust, and Lear, were never 
written to fill the pages of a Sunday newspaper. 
John Milton and John Bunyan were not publish- 
ers' hacks ; nor were John Hampden, John Bright, 
or Samuel Adams under pay as walking-delegates 
of reform. 

No man was hired to find out that the world was 
round, or that the valleys are worn down by water, 
or that the stars are suns. No man was paid to 
burn at the stake or die on the cross that other 
men might be free to live. The sane, strong, brave, 
heroic souls of all ages were the men who, in the 
natural order of things, have lived above all con- 
siderations of pay or glory. They have served 
not as slaves hoping for reward, but as gods who 
would take no reward. Men could not reward 
Shakespeare, or Darwin, or Newton, or Helmholtz 
for their services any more than we could pay the 
Lord for the use of His sunshine. From the same 
inexhaustible divine reservoir it all comes — the 
service of the great man and the sunshine of God. 



''ROOM FOR THE MAN OF FORCE." 285 

11 Twice have I molded an image, 

And thrice outstretched my hand ; 
Made one of day and one of night, 

And one of the salt sea strand* 
One in a Judean manger, 

And one by Avon's stream ; 
One over against the mouths of Nile, 

And one in the Academe." 

And in such image are men made every day, not 
only in Bethlehem or in Stratford, not alone on the 
banks of the Nile or the Arno ; but on the Colum- 
bia, or the Sacramento, or the San Francisquito, it 
may be, as well. All over the earth, in this image, 
are the sane, and the sound, and the true. And 
when and where their lives are spent arises gen- 
erations of others like them, men in the true order. 
Not alone men in the " image of God," but " gods 
in the likeness of men." 

It is to the training of the genuine man that the 
universities of the world are devoted. They call for 
the higher sacrifice, the sacrifice of those who have 
powers not needed in the common struggle of life, 
and who have, therefore, something over and be- 
yond this struggle to give to their fellows. Large 
or small, whatever the gift may be, the world needs 
it all, and to every good gift the world will respond 
a thousand-fold. Strength begets strength, and 
wisdom leads to wisdom. " There is always room 



286 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

for the man of force, and he makes room for many." 
It is the strong, wise, and good of the past who 
have made our lives possible. It is the great hu- 
man men, the "men in the natural order," that 
have made it possible for " the plain, common 
men," that make up civilization, to live, rather 
than merely to vegetate. 

We hear those among us sometimes who com- 
plain of the shortness of life, the smallness of truth, 
the limited stage on which man is forced to act. 
But the men who thus complain are not men who 
have filled this little stage with their action. The 
man who has learned to serve the Lord never com- 
plains that his Master does not give him enough to 
do. The man who helps his fellow-men does not 
stand about with idle hands to find men worthy of 
his assistance. He who leads a worthy life never 
vexes himself with the question as to whether life 
is worth living. 

We know that all our powers are products of the 
needs and duties of our ancestors. Wisdom too 
great to be translated into action is an absurdity. 
For wisdom is only knowing what it is best to do 
next. Virtue is only doing it. Virtue and happi- 
ness have never been far apart from each other. 
To know and to do is the essence of the highest 



THE STAMP OF IGNORANCE. 287 

service. Those the world has a right to honor are 
those who found enough in the world to do. The 
fields are always white to their harvest. 

Alexander the Great had conquered his neigh- 
bors in Greece and Asia Minor, the only world he 
knew. Then he sighed for more worlds to con- 
quer. But other worlds he knew nothing of lay 
all about him. The secrets of the rocks he had 
never suspected. Steam, electricity, the growth of 
trees, the fall of snow, — all these were mysteries 
to him. The only conquest he knew, the subjec- 
tion of men's bodies, went but a little way. All 
the men who in his lifetime knew the name of 
Alexander the Great could find encampment on 
the Palo Alto farm. The great world of men in 
his day was beyond his knowledge. His world 
was a very small one, and of this he had seen but 
a little corner. 

For the need of more worlds to conquer is no 
badge of strength. It is the stamp of ignorance. 
It is the cry only of him who knows that the 
great earth about him still stands unconquered. 
No Lincoln ever sighed for more nations to save; 
no Luther for more churches to purify; no Dar- 
win that nature had not more hidden secrets which 
he might follow to their depths ; no Agassiz that 



288 THE HIGHER SACRIFICE. 

the thoughts of God were all exhausted before he 
was born. 

And now, a final word to you as scholars: 
Higher education means the higher sacrifice. 
That you are taught to know is simply that you 
may do. Knowing the truth signifies that you 
should do right. Knowing and doing have value 
only as translated into justice and love. There 
is no man so strong as not to need your help. 
There is no man so weak that you cannot make 
him stronger. There is none so sick that you 
cannot bring him to the "gate called Beautiful." 
There is no evil in the world that you cannot 
help turn to goodness. "We could lift up this 
land," said Bjornson of Norway, " we could lift up 
this land, if we lifted as one." 

Therefore lift, and lift as one. You are strong 
enough and wise enough. You shall seek strength 
and wisdom, that others through you may be wiser 
and stronger. You shall seek your place to work 
as your basis for helpfulness. Others will make 
the place as good as you deserve. If your lives are 
sacrificed in helping men, it is to the market of 
the ages you carry your blood, not to the milk- 
market of Concord town. The honest man will not 



THE DEMAND FOB MEN. 289 

"pledge himself in Germany to teach nothing 
which is not true." Being true himself, he can 
teach nothing false. The more men of the true 
order there are in the world, the greater is the 
world's need of men. 

As you are men, so will your places in life be 
secure. Every profession is calling you. Every 
walk of life is waiting for your effort. There will 
always be room for you, and each of you will make 
room for many. 



THE BUBBLES OF SAKI. 



THE BUBBLES OF SAKI. 

TN sad, sweet cadence Persian Omar sings 

The life of man that lasts but for a day; 
A phantom caravan that hastes away. 
On to the chaos of insensate things. 

" The Eternal Sdkifrom that bowl hath poured 
Millions of bubbles like us and shall pour" 
Thy life or mine, a half-unspoken word, 
A fleck of foam tossed on an unknown shore. 

" When thou and I behind the veil are past, 
Oh, but the long, long while the world shall last ! 
Which of our coming and departure heeds, 
As the seven seas shall heed a pebble cast" 

" Then, my beloved, fill the cup that clears 
To-day of past regrets and future fears." 
This is the only wisdom man can know, 
" I come like water, and like wind I go." 

But tell me, Omar, hast thou said the whole? 
If such the bubbles that fill S&Ms bowl, 

293 



294 THE BUBBLES OF SAKI. 

How great is Sdki, whose least whisper calls 
Forth from the swirling mists a human soul! 

Omar, one word of thine is but a breath, 
A single cadence in thy perfect song; 
And as its measures softly flow along, 
A million cadences pass on to death. 

Shall this one word withdraw itself in scorn, 
Because 't is not thy first, nor last, nor all — 
Because y t is not the sole breath thou hast drawn, 
Nor yet the sweetest from thy lips let fall f 

I do rejoice that when " of Me and Thee " 
Men talk no longer, yet not less, but more, 
The Eternal Sdki still that bowl shall fill, 
And ever stronger, purer bubbles pour. 

One little note in the Eternal Song, 
The Perfect Singer hath made place for me; 
And not one atom in earttis wondrous throng 
But shall be needful to Infinity. 



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